Vucic ties election date to voters back from holiday
Serbia's president said on Kablar he will wait for wealthier voters to come home from the seaside before calling a snap parliamentary election. The opposition answered the same afternoon.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday, July 30, that he will hold off on calling a snap parliamentary election until wealthier voters return from their summer holidays. He spoke to reporters at the glass viewing platform on Kablar, near Cacak, which opened the same day. Broadcaster N1 carried the remarks at 1.35 p.m.
It is the first time the president has pinned the timing to anything more specific than a season. Our earlier report on the same story carried only his announcement that the vote would come in autumn, parliamentary first and presidential after it. That condition was not there. Now there are two, and the second one is addressed to the list led by student protesters.
“I will wait for the wealthier voters to come back from their ‘holiday’. Then we will call the election and give them that victory.”
He said it while commenting on what he described as a section of the public announcing it was away. About himself, he said the opposite.
“Since one part of the citizens said they are on ‘holiday’, that they are on vacation, and you can see that I am not, not for a day, I work every Saturday, I work every Sunday…”
So when is the election actually called?
Asked directly about a deadline, Vucic gave no date and fell back on procedure.
“The election will be called when the competent institution decides. The competent institution is guided by the Constitution, the laws and the needs of the citizens.”
He added that in his view the ideal months for holding a vote would be July and August, which is precisely the stretch of the calendar in which, by his own account, part of the electorate is out of the country.
The last formal obstacle fell a day earlier. On July 29 the National Assembly rejected a no confidence motion against the government of Prime Minister Djuro Macut, with 40 deputies in favour and 135 against. The cabinet stays in place at full strength, and the one parliamentary instrument that could have reshuffled the sequence before an election was spent without effect.
The condition set for the student list
The second half of the appearance was aimed at the list backed by the blockading students. Vucic asked it to state in advance whether it will congratulate the list of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) if that list wins, saying they are “fraudsters” if they refuse. For himself, he repeated a pledge he says he has already made in public.
“I promised publicly, if we lose by one percent, I extend my hand, I congratulate, I say, go ahead, take power, lead Serbia into a bright future.”
The trigger was a poll by the New Serbian Political Thought (NSPM) institute, published in the summer double issue of the weekly Vreme, which puts the student list at 39.6 percent and the SNS list at 37.5 percent. The gap is 2.1 percentage points. His comment on it, published by Vreme at 4.40 p.m. the same day, was an offer to concede in advance.
“I know the ending, they win. I have prepared myself to congratulate them, I have no problem with that.”
He then added: “I am only waiting for them to say that they too will congratulate the winner.” With that, the question of accepting the result was shifted from the governing side onto the list currently leading in that poll.
What the opposition said back
The reply came the same afternoon. Serbia Centre (SRCE) sent a statement through the FoNet news agency, published at 2.02 p.m., arguing that accepting an election result is neither the president’s goodwill nor a political gift, and that such language plays down the conditions under which the vote is held.
“Vucic is consciously and deliberately sending a message of fear to the part of the electorate that is not firmly against the regime but primarily wants peace and stability. Through the question that imposes itself, ‘what will happen if SNS loses the election’, he subtly creates an atmosphere of potential chaos and unrest”
SRCE says the purpose of that framing is to present the governing party as the only guarantor of calm, while the electoral conditions themselves go undiscussed.
Two practical points come out of the day for the election cycle. By the president’s own arithmetic the call does not land in August but after voters are home, which makes September the likeliest month for the decree. And the campaign argument is opening around who will congratulate whom before anyone has agreed on the terms of the vote. The constitutional clock for holding the election only starts running from the act that calls it, so every week of waiting pushes polling day back with it.
