European Serbia Hands In 10,200 Signatures to RIK
European Serbia submitted its election list and more than 10,200 signatures to Serbia's Republic Election Commission, as officials quit the Freedom and Justice Party and Serbia Center.
The coalition of the Freedom and Justice Party, Serbia Center and the Civic Platform Solidarity submitted its election list and signatures of support to the Republic Election Commission (RIK) on Saturday evening, September 19, ahead of the snap parliamentary election set for October 25, 2026. Boxes holding voters’ statements were carried into RIK headquarters in downtown Belgrade by Freedom and Justice Party president Dragan Djilas, Serbia Center president Zdravko Ponos and Civic Platform Solidarity leader Goran Jesic, accompanied by activists from all three parties.
According to Djilas, about 10,200 signatures of support were submitted, above the legal minimum of 10,000 valid voter statements required for a list that is not running as a minority list. Djilas said: “About 10,200 signatures were submitted.” He added that the coalition also holds additional signatures in reserve, in case some statements turn out not to be valid once RIK reviews them.
Submitting the list, however, is not the same as having it certified. The Republic Election Commission first determines whether the voter statements are valid and whether the list meets the legal requirement on gender representation, and only then issues a decision on certification. By Saturday evening RIK had certified nine election lists, and the European Serbia list is the tenth to be submitted, not the tenth to be certified.
The list’s name and submission time: sources disagree
Sources differ on the coalition’s full name. Radio Sloboda and the SNM portal list it as European Serbia, Marinika Tepic, Zdravko Ponos, while Kurir and Telegraf refer to it simply as European Serbia. Reports also diverge on who its formal lead candidates are: Radio Sloboda names Marinika Tepic and Zdravko Ponos, while SNM lists Goran Jesic alongside the two of them.
Accounts of the exact submission time also vary. Telegraf published its report on the submission at 8:57 p.m. on Saturday, Kurir put the submission at 8:15 p.m., while the portals SNM and Gledaj dated the handover to Sunday, September 20, a day later than most other reports.
Resignations within the Freedom and Justice Party and Serbia Center
Ahead of the list’s submission, several Freedom and Justice Party officials withdrew their names from it. According to N1, they include Borko Stefanovic, the party’s deputy president, and Goran Petrovic, its vice president, along with Mila Popovic, Vladimir Vrsajkov and Jelena Milosevic, who chair the party’s boards in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis. Former Freedom and Justice Party secretary general Pedja Mitrovic had already taken the same step earlier.
Serbia Center was not spared similar friction. Two members of the party’s Presidency, Slobodan Petrovic and Bosko Sindic, withdrew their names from the list and announced they were leaving the party. Ponos described the shift: “On the Presidency we have so far had a unanimous position that we go into the elections. Last night, for the first time, we had two members who said they were not in favor of it.”
Neither Djilas nor Ponos disputed the officials’ right to opt out of the race. Djilas said of them: “These are people who are great fighters for change in this country and fighters against this regime.” Jesic described the departures within the coalition’s own ranks this way: “There are a lot of people sowing seeds of discord between two platforms made up of people who have devoted their whole lives to fighting for democracy.”
The coalition’s stance on the Student List
Part of the pressure on the coalition came from calls for it to back the Student List instead of running on its own. European Serbia’s representatives rejected that idea. Tepic said:
“We are not running in this election against the student list. That is a seed of discord planted by the regime, and unfortunately, it has taken root.”
She added that the coalition sees its political goal purely in terms of removing the government from power: “Our only political opponent is this government, and our only goal is for Aleksandar Vucic and his cartel regime to become history.” Ponos explained the decision to run in terms of the coalition’s pro-European orientation: “European Serbia’s position is to take part in this election because we simply can no longer afford to wait.”
Unlike European Serbia, the Student List was submitted to RIK earlier, on September 14, and has already been certified, listed under number three, with 69,099 valid signatures, well above what the law requires.
What happens before October 25
The deadline for submitting election lists to the Republic Election Commission runs out at midnight on October 4, twenty days before election day. By then RIK is also expected to rule on certifying the European Serbia list, once it verifies the validity of the 10,200 submitted signatures and checks that the list meets the gender representation requirement.
We previously covered this story under the headline European Serbia Collects Signatures, List Heading to RIK on Sunday. It is now known that the submission happened a day earlier than announced at the time, on Saturday evening rather than Sunday, and that it was accompanied by the withdrawal of six Freedom and Justice Party officials and two members of Serbia Center’s Presidency.
