Stojanovic: A Vucic win in the autumn elections is no longer possible
Political scientist Boban Stojanovic says calling and winning the autumn 2026 parliamentary elections is now a closed scenario for President Vucic, after a string of failed stabilisation attempts.
- Political scientist Boban Stojanovic says a Vucic win in the autumn elections is now a closed scenario.
- By his analysis, every measure the government has tried to stabilise its rating has failed.
- Vucic has shifted the announced election date three times, which Stojanovic reads as a sign of uncertainty.
- SNS rejected the analysis as a pre-election claim that prejudges the outcome.
Boban Stojanovic, political scientist at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, said publicly that the scenario in which President Aleksandar Vucic calls and wins the autumn 2026 parliamentary elections no longer exists. By his assessment, none of the ruling party’s attempts to stabilise its electoral position over the past six months have worked.
Stojanovic set out his analysis in the context of the debate over how the president will decide the timing of the vote. Under the constitution the president calls parliamentary elections within statutory windows, and the Presidential Cabinet has repeatedly indicated autumn 2026.
Three date shifts
By Stojanovic’s analysis, over the past nine months the president has shifted the publicly indicated election date three times. He reads these changes not as strategy but as uncertainty about the rating structure of SNS and its partners.
Stojanovic cites three data points:
- the scale of student protests in Belgrade and the interior
- the drop in SNS support at the local elections in March, where the ruling list was weaker in eight of ten municipalities that voted
- the opening of the Senjak case, which directly affects a part of the police leadership
Everything the government has done over the past nine months, from heavy media presence to fast-tracking electoral laws, has not changed a rating structure showing that SNS at this moment cannot count on a parliamentary majority, Stojanovic’s analysis states.
SNS response
The Serbian Progressive Party rejected the analysis. Milos Vucevic, the party’s president, called it a pre-election claim that prejudges the result. He maintains that SNS runs open and fair elections in which the rating of the ruling party and the president remains stable.
The Socialist Party of Serbia, SNS’s coalition partner, said the party’s rating inside a joint package with SNS can produce a different picture than individual polls. By their reasoning, “SPS delivers mandates on jobs voters value”.
What the opposition expects
The pro-European opposition received Stojanovic’s analysis with cautious approval. Zdravko Ponos, president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, said such assessments “do not change the fact that the opposition itself must produce a consistent offer”. The Democratic Party and the Freedom and Justice Party voiced similar reservations.
A section of the opposition is also asking whether the student plenums are ready to back a joint list, or will choose a separate run, which Marinika Tepic warns could fragment the opposition vote.
How Stojanovic derives his projection
Stojanovic projects, based on current polling trends, that opposition lists could secure 40 to 48 seats in the next parliament and the student list 5 to 12 seats, opening the door to a scenario of a hung parliament without a clear majority.
Other political analysts warn that the projection is a hypothesis, not a certainty. The campaign in Serbia over the past eight years has shown that rating structures can shift in the final weeks before voting day.
Will the upcoming campaign confirm or refute Stojanovic’s forecast?
