September Payouts Begin, Elections Loom in Same Window
Applications for the 6,000 dinar payment open September 7, pensioners are paid from September 14, and other adults from September 22, the same month Vucic says he will call early elections.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the first firm dates for payments to citizens on August 14. Applications for adults open September 7, money for pensioners starts moving September 14, and the 6,000 dinar payments for adult citizens follow on September 22. He gave the timeline to reporters after touring the Expo construction site in Surcin.
The same month carries a second calendar. Vucic has repeatedly said he will call early parliamentary elections once citizens return from their summer holidays, with voting expected in October or November. The deadline for calling the election and the deadline for the first payments now fall within the same few-week window.
How much money goes to whom
Pensioners are set to receive amounts ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 dinars, depending on the size of their pension. Adult citizens get 6,000 dinars each, after registering in advance.
We’re going ahead on September 14 with payments to pensioners of 20,000 to 35,000 dinars
For the payouts, Vucic said, 246 million is coming from the Shareholding Fund and a bit more than 960 million from the state budget. The money is not going out all at once, but in three rounds: in September, December and January of next year.
The president explained the split funding sources by pointing to an earlier legal provision.
Of that, 246 million comes from the Shareholding Fund, a bit more than 150 million from the budget, so we could also cover those citizens, because the law was flawed, it only applied to people who came of age by 2007. So, almost a billion in total, a bit more than 960 million from the budget, will be paid out during September, and then December and January of next year
Until August 14, the government had only promised that payments were coming, without laying out a schedule. Now a schedule exists, and it fits into fifteen days of September.
What’s known about the election calendar
Vucic has tied the early parliamentary election to citizens’ return from summer holidays, with voting in October or November. He has placed the presidential election between late December and early February.
Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) president Milos Vucevic said in late July that Vucic would resign after calling the election and enter the campaign as an ordinary citizen. Vucevic also announced a different campaign format this time: instead of rallies in major cities, a large number of small gatherings in smaller towns.
Vucic has also scheduled large rallies in Novi Sad and Uzice, though without dates yet. Rallies announced for Belgrade are likewise still undated.
We reported earlier on how visible the president has been ahead of the campaign itself: in the first eleven days of August he appeared live on television 49 times.
The other side is also working the ground
The student side is running its campaign without rallies. The Student in Every Village working group has stands this weekend in Kucevo, Valjevo, Raska, Kanjiza, Pranjani, Ljubovija and Vranje, plus Bele Vode and Vracar in Belgrade. Door to door visits are planned in Sremska Mitrovica, Raska and Vranje, while the Students on the Pcinja campaign covers Vladicin Han, Surdulica, Bujanovac, Trgoviste and the wider Vranje area.
Even after 500 places visited, SUSS isn’t tired! Not only are we not giving up, we’re visiting even more locations every week
The Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) marked one year since the police intervention in Valjevo by saying that more than 350 citizens have been detained over a year of protests, and that none of them belong to the ruling party. Vucic, addressing the same anniversary, said the state does not run from responsibility, but that responsibility should not be avoided either by those who, as he put it, provoked and beat police officers.
He was blunt about how he expects it all to end.
I call on all citizens, not to celebrate our divisions, but to focus on how we can be united. The elections will be over quickly, we will win them more convincingly than you expect. Once the elections are over, what we need is a united country.
The first checkable date is September 7, when applications open. No decision on calling the election has been scheduled by then, so only afterward will it be clear whether it lands before the first payment or after it.
