Ponos resigns as head of SRCE, party won't be opposition
Zdravko Ponos has resigned as leader of the Serbia Center party nine days after the election. The party continues outside parliament and says it will not be in opposition.
The Serbia Center party (SRCE) is without a leader. Zdravko Ponos handed in his resignation at an evening session of the Presidency on November 3, 2026, nine days after the list he ran on fell below the electoral threshold. No reason for his departure was given, and neither Ponos nor any other party official has commented.
Sources disagree on one word. According to Republika, Mondo and the 021 portal, the Presidency “noted” the resignation, while Nova.rs reports that it was “accepted.” The party’s statement speaks of noting it.
Who runs SRCE until the Electoral Assembly?
Two bodies will lead the party on an interim basis. The Presidency’s statement says:
“Until the Electoral Assembly is held within the next six months, the party will be led by the Presidency and the Executive Board.”
No successor was named, and the only deadline the party gave for the Electoral Assembly is the next six months.
The election result behind the resignation
On October 25, SRCE ran in a coalition with the Freedom and Justice Party and the Civic Movement “Solidarity”, on the list “European Serbia - Marinika Tepic - Zdravko Ponos.” According to preliminary data from the Republic Electoral Commission, the list won 12,143 votes, or 0.28 percent, while some sources put the figure at 12,041 votes. The threshold is three percent.
The list of Bogoljub Karic, “Movement of the Forces of Serbia - BK,” received 19,600 votes (0.46 percent), which is 7,457 more than the list Ponos was on. Vreme reported earlier that neither Ponos nor Dragan Djilas was willing to comment on the election result.
What the party statement says
In its statement, the SRCE Presidency says that the fall of the regime of Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Progressive Party is “Serbia’s most important step toward normalizing the situation in the country.” The party continues as an extra-parliamentary one and, as it states, will keep fighting for European integration and Serbia’s membership in the European Union. The statement recalls that this was one of the reasons the party was founded three years ago.
The Presidency calls on the new government to do everything in its power to unblock the European integration process. The statement then adds its assessment of that process:
“The Presidency of Serbia Center (SRCE) holds that the continuation of European integration has no credible alternative.”
The final sentence of the statement draws the most attention, because it defines the party’s stance toward those taking over power. The Presidency said:
“Serbia Center (SRCE) will not be an opposition but a support to the implementation of such a policy.”
A party that entered the election in a coalition with the Freedom and Justice Party and the “Solidarity” movement is thus announcing after the vote that it will not join the opposition. The material that reached the newsroom contains no statements from the coalition partners or from Marinika Tepic, with whom Ponos shared the electoral list, so it is not known how they view the resignation and this choice.
