Vucevic Announces SNS Main Board, List Must Win Alone
Serbia's ruling party leader announced a Main Board session in two weeks to set the election list, said it must win on its own, and pointed to strained relations with the Socialist Party.
Serbian Progressive Party leader Milos Vucevic said on Tuesday, August 25, that his party’s Main Board would meet in two weeks to finalize the election list for the parliamentary vote. Speaking as a guest on the morning show “Uranak” on K1 television, Vucevic said he believed the list would run under the name “United Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic,” with the Serbian president as its top candidate.
“I believe our list will be called United Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic,” Vucevic said on “Uranak” on K1 television.
He added that Aleksandar Vucic would become the party’s candidate for prime minister if the list wins voters’ trust, though he said a final decision on Vucic’s personal place on the list has not yet been made. Vucevic argued that the SNS has held to the political course Serbia has followed for the past 14 years, while other political options, he said, stand “on the other side.”
What Vucevic Said About the SPS
In the same appearance, Vucevic made no secret of his displeasure with signals coming from the Socialist Party of Serbia. He had first signaled that displeasure a day earlier, on August 24, in remarks that for the first time openly tied the state of the ruling coalition to the coming elections.
“As for our relationship with the SPS, it is now clear to us that our list must win the upcoming parliamentary elections on its own,” Vucevic said.
The SNS leader stressed that the party treats every statement by a senior official of its coalition partner as the position of the whole organization, not as one person’s personal comment.
“We will not treat an attack by one individual as the attack of one individual, but of the entire organization,” Vucevic said, adding that the same rule applies to the SNS: a statement by any senior party official, from Ana Brnabic to Sinisa Mali, is treated as the official position of the SNS, not as an individual opinion.
The Deliblato Sands Dispute as the Trigger
Behind Vucevic’s message lies a clash that broke out three days earlier between Vucic and SPS deputy leader Branko Ruzic. On August 22 in Leskovac, Vucic sharply criticized Ruzic over an earlier statement in which Ruzic said that, after the wildfire in the Deliblato Sands, the focus should be on restoring the ecosystem rather than repurposing the land, and that limits should be considered on building wind and solar power plants in the area.
“Both that party and he himself have always had only money and business plans on their minds. He has never actually done anything; the only trace he has left in everything he has done has always been petty theft, petty tenders and nothing more than that,” Vucic said at the rally in Leskovac.
Ruzic responded the same day in comments to the Fonet news agency, saying he would not answer personal attacks in the same language, and that the results of his work in previous governments are public and verifiable, from opening accession talks with the European Union to reforming public administration and digitizing civil registries.
“Neither he nor I are the most important thing here, the Deliblato Sands are,” Ruzic said.
He added that if there is agreement that no construction will take place in the Sands, the Government should confirm that with concrete decisions and a public restoration plan, rather than leaving it at the level of a political statement.
Dacic Insists the Coalition Is Stable
For his part, SPS leader and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic rejects the reading that his party’s decision to run alone signals a break with the Progressives. Dacic first announced on July 17 that the SPS would contest the parliamentary elections independently, in a pre-election coalition with United Serbia and the Greens of Serbia. He says the SPS Main Board adopted that decision unanimously, with roughly 300 Main Board members and more than 100 heads and deputy heads of municipal boards in attendance.
According to Dacic, that same Main Board also voted unanimously to continue cooperating with the SNS after the elections.
“We are extremely satisfied and we believe that the longest-running coalition in Europe is our coalition with the Serbian Progressive Party and with Aleksandar Vucic,” Dacic said.
Dacic also dismissed the claim that Ruzic’s statement reflects the party’s position, saying Ruzic was not present at the session where the decision was made and “cannot speak on behalf of the Socialist Party of Serbia.” He stressed that anyone who disregards decisions made by party bodies must face consequences, since doing so damages the SPS.
What Comes Next
SPS municipal and city boards met through August 25 to propose candidates for the coming elections, while Vucevic says the SNS Main Board will hold its list-setting session in two weeks, meaning in early September. Until then, it remains an open question whether Vucic will personally accept the top spot on the list, and whether the friction over the SPS’s tone will stay confined to individual statements or spill over into the coalition talks expected after the elections.
