Aleksic: No Presidential Vote Before October 4

Miroslav Aleksic, president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, said a presidential election can only be held after October 4 and that, in his assessment, Aleksandar Vucic cannot call one before a parliamentary vote. He made the claim in Belgrade, in the days when the National Assembly is holding a no-confidence session on the government, and as speculation over the order of the autumn elections has intensified.

Aleksic points to arithmetic inside the government as the key reason. The ruling party, he says, has no strong presidential candidate, so scheduling a presidential race before a parliamentary one would be a politically risky move. In that logic, the sequence is not a technical calendar question but a matter of judging who at the top of the government’s list can pull votes without opening the question of a successor.

Why does the opposition insist on the order?

For the opposition bloc, the order of the elections has in recent months become the issue on which the entire campaign hinges. If the parliamentary vote comes first, the opposition calculates that a result at the republic level would set the frame for everything that follows, including the contest for head of state. If, conversely, the presidential race were called earlier, the campaign would be personalized around a single name, which has traditionally favored the government.

That is exactly where Aleksic sees the ruling coalition’s weak point. His thesis is that the government is delaying the presidential contest because it currently has no candidate who could emerge as a sure winner without Vucic’s personal involvement. In that calculation, October 4 functions as a line before which, by his reading, the conditions for a presidential vote simply are not met.

The governing side does not accept these assessments. No date has been officially confirmed from the ranks of the government, nor has a presidential candidate been named, so from that angle Aleksic’s claims read as pre-election speculation rather than confirmed information. Earlier signals from behind the scenes suggested the parliamentary election might fall in the autumn and the presidential one only at the end of the year, which would partly align with Aleksic’s estimate, but without a single binding decision from the competent bodies.

What the timing means in the shadow of the no-confidence session

The context in which Aleksic is speaking is not accidental. The no-confidence session has opened room for a scenario in which the government, rather than waiting, makes the move itself and calls elections at the moment that suits it best. In such a configuration, every statement about a possible date becomes part of a negotiating position, for both the government and the opposition.

With his assessment, Aleksic is trying to frame the debate in advance. If he manages to impose the reading that a presidential vote before October 4 is not possible, then the government, should it move earlier anyway, has to explain why. It is a classic move of election preparation, in which dates are used as an argument as much as a calendar.

For now two facts remain clear. First, the opposition claims the government has no strong candidate and is therefore delaying the presidential race. Second, the government has confirmed neither a deadline nor a name, so everything else is an estimate, however confidently it is stated.

Do you believe the order of the elections, parliamentary then presidential or the other way around, will decisively shape the outcome of the autumn campaign?