Serbian President Vučić to Run as Ruling Party's Prime Ministerial Candidate

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić will head the list of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the upcoming parliamentary elections and will run as the party's candidate for prime minister, according to a statement posted on the party's Facebook page.

Milenko Jovanov, leader of the SNS parliamentary faction, said Vučić and his policies form the foundation on which Serbia currently stands. He also claimed that the anti-government protests are being led by small, anonymous and unstructured political groups that, if they came to power, would turn the country into what he described as a concentration camp.

In July, Vučić told the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that he was confident his party would win the October elections, saying that within three months the party would secure a victory in elections he described as far more democratic than in many other countries, and that Serbia would emerge economically stronger.

Ongoing protests

For the past two years, Serbia has periodically seen large-scale anti-government demonstrations driven largely by young people. Against the backdrop of these protests, Vučić has begun signaling that he intends to leave the presidency before his term ends in mid-2027.

Austrian political scientist of Bosnian origin Vedran Džihić told Die Presse in June that Vučić's talk of resigning is likely a tactic aimed at securing the prime minister's post instead.

Under Serbia's constitution, the country is a parliamentary republic in which the prime minister holds full executive power, while the president's role is largely ceremonial.