Vucic on Cirilica: Elections After Summer, Belgrade Rally June 27
On TV Prva's Cirilica show, Vucic for the first time said there will be no vote during summer but after it, announcing a Belgrade rally on June 27 and a military drill on June 28.
- On TV Prva's Cirilica show, Vucic for the first time said there will be no vote during the summer, but that there will be elections after it.
- He announced a large rally in Belgrade on June 27, to be held without classic political speeches.
- For June 28, in the days around Vidovdan, he announced a military drill at Pasuljanske Livade.
- He reduced the blockade movement's tactics to three points he called elements of a colour revolution.
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic has for the first time offered a clearer time frame for the next elections. Appearing on the Cirilica show on TV Prva on Monday evening, he rejected the idea that voting would take place in the middle of summer, but left the door clearly open for autumn.
On the same occasion Vucic announced two late-June events: a large rally in Belgrade on June 27 and a military drill at Pasuljanske Livade on June 28, in the days around Vidovdan. For the first time, the president tied electoral timing, a party gathering and a show of military force into a single appearance, which has already drawn sharp reactions from part of the opposition.
When exactly are the elections, if not in summer?
The most precise wording Vucic offered concerns the timing of the vote. The president said Serbia would not go to the polls in the middle of the summer season, but that afterwards the account would have to be settled.
“Not during the summer, but after the summer we have elections,” Aleksandar Vucic said on Cirilica, leaving autumn as the most likely term.
The statement follows earlier signals from the ruling coalition, after indications published a day earlier that elections could be held somewhat later than expected. Vucic also announced a large rally in Belgrade on June 27, describing it as a gathering of citizens without classic political speeches, and therefore different from standard pre-election rallies.
For the following day, June 28, the president announced a military drill at Pasuljanske Livade, a training ground of the Serbian Army. The date around Vidovdan and its proximity to a large party rally give the drill added symbolic weight, something several opposition voices have already flagged as an unnecessary blurring of the state and the party.
What he said about the protests
The central part of Vucic’s message concerned the tactics of the blockade movement and the student protests that have marked the Serbian political scene for months. The president reduced those tactics to three elements, which he described as a pattern of a colour revolution:
- relativising every electoral and institutional victory of the authorities
- criminalising political opponents and office holders
- dehumanisation, that is, portraying dissenters as unworthy
At the same time, Vucic rejected accusations levelled at him during the protests, including claims that he hates birds and people, calling them nonsensical. The president said he had no intention of giving up the announced gatherings despite pressure from the street.
Students and the opposition have repeatedly said that the only way out of the crisis is calling snap elections as soon as possible, and that rallies held by the authorities cannot replace a response to the protesters’ demands. The ruling coalition, for its part, rejects the colour-revolution label as an attempt to relativise its own responsibility and argues that political interests stand behind the protests.
The announcement of the June 27 rally and the military drill a day later sets the end of June as a new turning point, just before the countdown to autumn elections begins. Will a call to gather without political speeches really ease tensions, or will it sharpen them further?
