Vucic: Opponents Are Favorites, I'll Congratulate Them
The president of Serbia spoke from his family home in Cipuljici near Bugojno, saying his rivals are ahead in the polls and he will congratulate them. No election date has been set.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on August 3 that his political opponents are the favorites in the upcoming election and that he will congratulate them if they win. He made the comment in an interview with TV Prva, filmed at his family’s renovated home in Cipuljici, a village in the Bugojno municipality of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where his father Andjelko is from.
No election had been called in Serbia as of that day. Vucic had previously said the decision would come in August or September, with voting itself set for October or November, and that parliamentary elections would be held first, followed by the presidential race. His remark about the opponents being favorites came, then, at a moment when neither an official election cycle nor candidate lists exist yet.
What He Actually Said
Vucic claimed that voters’ commitment to turning out at the polls stands at over 80 percent, a level he said Serbia has never seen before. From that figure he drew a conclusion about how voters view the act of voting itself.
I think people are aware of the importance and understand that elections are not a game, just as the state is not a game, and that is why I believe the people will decide differently than what the polls, paid for by the European Union, show one way or another.
He then reacted to an assessment by Milorad Dodik, leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, who had predicted the ruling party would win, delivering a line that has not been heard from that address before.
I think our opponents are certainly the favorites, they’re leading according to their own polls. If that’s how it turns out, I will congratulate them on the election as well.
The two statements appear to collide at first glance. In the first, polls are a paid instrument that gets it wrong. In the second, they are the very yardstick by which the opponents lead, and by which their advantage is being conceded in advance.
Why the Tone Has Shifted
Until now, the president had publicly disputed the polls that show the list gathered around the student movement ahead. This time he did not dispute them. He accepted them as a starting point, with the caveat that the European Union funds them and that voters will ultimately decide otherwise.
Politically, admitting that an opponent is ahead is not necessarily a concession. A candidate who casts himself as the underdog resets expectations: any result better than predicted counts as a win, and an opposition victory stops being a surprise that needs explaining. The pledge to congratulate the winner also closes off, in advance, the question of accepting results, a question that dragged on for months after the vote in previous cycles.
What the 80 percent figure actually means is still an open question. Vucic spoke about voters’ commitment, in other words a stated intention to vote, not measured turnout, and he cited no polling agency or date for the figure. Stated intent and actual turnout on election day tend to diverge in practice.
When Could the Election Be Called?
The calendar remains open. As we reported, the National Assembly is waiting on ODIHR, and its session has been pushed to the end of August, the first institutional date that could actually carry a decision to call the election. If the president sticks to his own timeline, the order would be parliamentary elections first, then presidential, two separate cycles with two separate deadlines.
In practical terms, for a vote to happen in October the election would need to be called by the first half of September at the latest, given the legal deadlines for submitting candidate lists and running a campaign. Every week of delay pushes the vote closer to November.
A Three Day Visit
The statement came in the middle of a three day visit to Republika Srpska and Serb returnee municipalities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the same day, Vucic visited the Janjske Otoke area near Sipovo and Serb communities on the Kupres Plateau, and in Cipuljici he received Dodik along with Milan Knezevic, leader of the Democratic People’s Party of Montenegro.
His arrival in Mrkonjic Grad was announced for the next day, for the central commemoration of the anniversary of Serb suffering during Croatia’s operation “Oluja” (Storm). Ahead of that anniversary, he said Serbia can look itself in the face and condemn crimes committed in its name, but will not forget its own victims.
Speaking about the military, he repeated that Serbia is militarily neutral and would not survive without a strong army.
We have a strong army and serious weapons. Spirit and state of mind always matter, but in modern times new technology and the quality of weapons play a dominant role. Serbia today is incomparably, incomparably stronger than at any point in its history.
All of this was said from a place that is not the official seat of government, a house in a village where, by his own account, mostly Bosniaks live today and almost no Serbs remain. The message about Serbia’s election arrived from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a day before the commemoration, and before anyone had signed a decree calling the vote.
