Vucic films campaign before resignation: driving, fishing

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic posted more than ten videos on his Instagram account on September 19: himself driving a car to a song by Toma Zdravkovic, breakfast with anglers at Lake Salinac near Smederevo, and an announcement that he would visit the Moravski Konaci ethno village in Velika Plana. He has repeatedly said he would not start campaigning until after resigning as president, yet the videos appeared a week before the date he himself set for that step, September 27.

Serbia’s snap parliamentary election is scheduled for October 25. The Republic Election Commission certified the “Aleksandar Vucic, United Serbia” list under ballot number one, with Vucic as its leader and the first of 250 candidates. He is followed by Milos Vucevic and Ana Brnabic, and the list also includes the son of Vojislav Seselj, the daughter of Dragan Dzajic, Zeljko Rebraca, Vjerica Radeta and Lidija Vukicevic.

Driving to Toma Zdravkovic’s song, fishing near Smederevo

In the first video, Vucic is behind the wheel of his own car near Smederevo while a song by Toma Zdravkovic plays on the radio.

“Today, for the first time, I’m my own boss, acting as both driver and man of the people,” Vucic wrote in the caption.

The next video shows him at Lake Salinac, where the president had breakfast with anglers and said he had obtained a fishing license.

“I never knew how to fish. I got a fishing license and I hope I’ll have time to learn. I talked to wonderful people at Lake Salinac, near Smederevo,” Vucic wrote.

For that same afternoon, he announced a visit to the Moravski Konaci ethno village in Velika Plana and a conversation with local residents.

When will Vucic actually resign?

Vucic has been announcing his departure from the presidency since June 27, when he said he had “days and weeks” left in the job. In July he said he would resign a few days after the election was called; in August, that he would step down before joining the campaign; and on September 11 that he would hand in his resignation on September 25 or 26, after returning from the United Nations General Assembly session in New York. Three days later he named September 27 as the final date.

Srpske Novine reported on September 17 that Vucic planned to start his campaign that Saturday but would not resign until after New York. The Instagram videos show that the campaign, at least in the form of personal social media posts, had already begun before that date.

What does the political marketing expert say?

Igor Avzner, a political marketing expert, says videos like these cannot lift Vucic’s approval rating, which he describes as the lowest it has ever been.

“This isn’t unusual, since he’s still the sitting president and there are certain security protocols in place so nothing happens to him, so no one tries anything. This propaganda trip costs us ten times more than if he traveled in an official vehicle driven by the Cobras and secured by the BIA,” Avzner says.

Avzner adds that if the first video had been filmed a bit wider, security vehicles would have been visible in the frame too, since the president is protected by the Security Information Agency (BIA).

The analyst goes on to say that Vucic has changed his language toward the students, now calling them “our brothers and sisters” instead of blockaders, a shift he attributes to research and focus groups showing that the previous aggressive rhetoric no longer works even with undecided voters.

“The worst thing that could happen is that his core electorate, put off by the tone of his messages and the way he delivers them, either abstains or, worse, casts blank ballots. We all remember how that cost Tadic, those blank ballots. That’s what brought Tadic down against Nikolic,” Avzner says.

In his assessment, Vucic is too late to change his approach, since voters have had 14 years to see the gap between his words and his actions. Avzner also notes that the president has been appearing before increasingly smaller crowds, such as in Uzice, followed by an appearance in Nis in front of only a few hundred people.

Avzner points out that, aside from Vucic, no one from the Serbian Progressive Party’s inner circle, not Sinisa Mali, not Ana Brnabic, not Bratislav Gasic, not Milenko Jovanov, has appeared in the parliamentary campaign. The reason, he says, is simple: their ratings are even worse than the president’s.

The analyst also warns of two factors that could shape the rest of the campaign: whether Vucic is willing to fight to the very last day, and how willing the international community will be to recognize the results of the October 25 election.