SNS Tent Rallies Hit About Fifteen Towns Before Elections
Tent rallies have swept fifteen or so towns, from Subotica to Trgoviste, though elections have not been called yet. Ministers take the mic, then come the feast, kolo dancing and a variety show.
The Serbian Progressive Party’s tent campaign has rolled through about fifteen towns over the past few weeks, from Subotica to Trgoviste, even though as of August 3, 2026, parliamentary elections had not yet been called. The pattern repeats from one municipality to the next: a white tent on the square or in a field, a sound system, rows of plastic chairs, tables set for a feast, kolo dancing and a live variety program.
The most frequent speaker is Milos Vucevic, president of the SNS, who has been the party’s most active official on the ground for months. Ministers Zlatibor Loncar, Dragan Glamocic, Bratislav Gasic, Darko Glisic, Sara Pavkov and Sinisa Mali have also taken the microphone at these gatherings. Among others, National Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabic, Mali and lawmaker Milenko Jovanov sang and danced. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attended some of the rallies as well, and in Oplanici near Kraljevo he was welcomed to the sound of Baja Mali Knindza.
The list of towns visited by ruling party officials covers nearly the entire country:
- Vojvodina: Subotica, Futog, Odzaci, Zitiste, Lacarak
- Sumadija and western Serbia: Topola, Valjevo, Loznica, Lapovo, Oplanici near Kraljevo
- south: Nis, Bunusevac near Vranje, Vladicin Han, Bujanovac, Trgoviste
The election race, however, has not begun. According to Vucic’s latest statements, voting is expected in October or November.
The Message Stays the Same Everywhere
No matter where the tent is pitched, the content of the speeches does not change: the people saved the country, elections are approaching, victory is needed. In Topola, Vucevic asked the crowd to turn out and vote.
“Now that we are a few months from the elections, big and important elections, I came to ask you not to throw away everything that has been built over the past 15 years. Let’s not think that things are guaranteed and that it can’t get worse. It can. These very blockaders showed us exactly how much worse it can get.”
That same evening he specified that all of the party’s resources would be directed toward the election result. Two months earlier in Futog, he made a promise directly to the president of Serbia: “Vucic, we promise you, we will win in Novi Sad and across Vojvodina.”
Health Minister Loncar reduced the choice to two options at one of the rallies.
“You know yourselves, without Vucic there is nothing, let’s not lie to each other. So think about it and talk to everyone, because there are only two choices: help Vucic, or watch Serbia slide back into ruin.”
In Valjevo, with musical accompaniment from Era Ojdanic, Glisic offered a calendar for what was coming.
“It will be a hot summer, and an interesting autumn too, but the New Year will be beautiful once we beat them and show them that all we want is to live normally, and that there are more of us.”
Why a Tent Instead of a Town Square?
The answer is mostly about production. Bojan Vranic, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, told N1 that the SNS is moving the same tents used in Pionirski Park around Serbia, and that they serve a practical, media function, not just a symbolic one.
“Now the SNS is literally decentralizing those same tents across Serbia, saying, here, everyone now has their own tent where they can save Serbia and unite under it. The second thing is that it looks good in media terms, in production terms. If 200 people show up in a small town square, that’s a lot, but when you film it with a camera, it doesn’t look like much. When 200 people come into a tent, though, it looks like a full tent, a celebration.”
A tent, in other words, does a job a square cannot: it closes off the frame, removes the empty space behind the last row of chairs, and makes every shot look fuller than it really is. The same mechanism explains why the rallies are held in smaller towns, where a few hundred people are enough to fill the picture.
Political scientist Dusan Spasojevic told Vreme that this is about rebuilding a connection with the party’s own base.
“We’ve seen tents before too, though somewhat less often, and I see them mainly as a way for SNS leaders to reconnect with their base and convince voters that they are ordinary people just like them, people who enjoy a tent party, roast meat and kolo dancing. The longer you’re in power, the harder it is to keep up that image.”
Criticism from local communities focuses on cost. Kraljevo activist Predrag Vostinic told the same weekly that the picture would look different if someone told the crowd how much the minister dancing with them had spent on a single trip, compared with their own yearly expenses.
What Changes Once Elections Are Called
This is the part of the story the tent footage does not show. A campaign run before elections are called takes place outside the official election period, and it is precisely that period that triggers the rules on campaign financing and reporting to the Anti-Corruption Agency. As long as no candidate lists exist, ministers at these rallies appear as members of the government, not as candidates.
In Lapovo, Vucic announced that his role in the campaign would look different from what it has been so far, effectively putting a deadline on the tents themselves.
“You won’t believe it when you see it. It will seem strange to you, probably to me too. If you think there will be more gatherings like this one, no way. We’ll keep doing this until September, and then everything changes. I can’t reveal all the details, but you won’t be bored.”
By that timeline, the tent campaign has about a month left to run. After September comes a format the president did not describe, and then the formal calling of elections itself, the moment when the period the law recognizes as a campaign actually begins. Until then, under the tent, they are celebrating an election result that has not been scheduled yet.
