Aleksic Rejects Djilas, NPS Picks Narodna Srbija
Miroslav Aleksic and Dragan Djilas met on Monday to weigh a joint ticket, but the People's Movement of Serbia opted to run with its existing partners in the Narodna Srbija coalition instead.
The People’s Movement of Serbia (NPS) has decided not to run in the upcoming parliamentary election on a joint list with the parties gathered under the Platform for European Serbia, N1 reports, a claim also confirmed in similar terms by the Nova.rs news portal. The party’s leadership made the call after NPS president Miroslav Aleksic met with Freedom and Justice Party (SSP) president Dragan Djilas on Monday, August 31.
Media close to the government reported this week, citing unofficial information, that early parliamentary elections should be held on October 25. No election date has been officially set. According to the weekly Vreme, President Aleksandar Vucic has until next Thursday, September 10, to call the vote, while election lists with supporting signatures must be submitted no later than three weeks before election day.
Why Couldn’t Aleksic and Djilas Reach a Deal?
According to Nova.rs, the meeting between the two leaders was conducted in a correct and cordial tone, but the decision was still to run separately. N1 cites an assessment within the NPS that it is too late for a deal, adding that the party’s rank and file are also opposed to a joint list with the Platform.
Vreme, which was first to report on the meeting, wrote the same day that an agreement was not yet ruled out and that the leaders had roughly a week left to align their positions, noting that neither Djilas nor Aleksic had responded to its questions. The outlet also reported that differences over strategy persist: Djilas is pushing for a clearly pro-European list, while Aleksic insists on a broader opposition front.
The nature of the disagreement was described by a source close to the talks, cited by Vreme.
“Within every party, the mood, deep down, favors running on a single list. But the bottleneck is clearly between Djilas and Aleksic. They have about a week, at most, to reach an agreement.”
That is how a senior opposition source, who asked not to be named, described the situation to Vreme.
The NPS is running in the election as part of a coalition called Narodna Srbija (People’s Serbia), alongside its existing partners, the Ecological Uprising and the New Face of Serbia, an alliance formed last month. The Platform for European Serbia, on the other hand, brings together the Freedom and Justice Party (SSP), Srbija Centar (SRCE), the Movement of Free Citizens and the Solidarity movement, whose four parties signed a cooperation agreement back in June 2026.
A day before news of the NPS decision broke, Dragan Djilas said on N1’s Novi dan program that talks were still ongoing over the best option for the election, namely which combination of opposition parties and the student list could together clear 50 percent of the vote.
As positioning within the pro-European wing of the opposition hardens, support for the student list is being formalized elsewhere. The Social Democratic Party (SDS) announced today, September 4, that its Presidency had confirmed an earlier decision by the Main Board to back the student list in the election.
“The historic significance of the upcoming election demands maximum coordination and mobilization of all opposition forces, student organizations and citizens’ assemblies. We have no right to division when our country’s future is at stake.”
The SDS said this in its statement.
The NPS decision comes as the opposition, according to the outlet Srpske vesti, had already been given a 72-hour deadline and told to collect 10,000 signatures for any potential joint list, with October 25 as the target date. It is now clear that the opposition will spend at least part of that window split into at least two columns, while Aris Movsesijan, deputy president of the Movement of Free Citizens, said as recently as last month that his party had not made a final decision and would do so only once the election is officially called.
The next marker is September 10, the deadline by which, according to media close to the government, a decision on calling the election should be made. By then it will also become clear whether Djilas and Aleksic, despite the NPS’s announced decision, can still find room for some form of coordination ahead of October 25, or whether the pro-European wing of the opposition will end up on the ballot in two separate columns.
