Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced a snap election for Oct. 25, only days after his government was criticized by the European Union over the funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic.
An opposition coalition called Student List—which grew out of street protests that began after 16 people died when a railway station canopy collapsed in November 2024—is seeking to challenge Vucic and the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). One of the protesters’ demands has been for early elections, something Vucic has resisted until this week.
Vucic, constitutionally barred from running for another presidential term, said he plans to run for prime minister.
“We have had … huge turbulences,” Vucic said. “We need election results that will clearly show the will of the people and the direction where Serbia is going.”
Serbia is seeking to join the EU, but its chances of acceding have been affected in recent days by its decision to honor Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb commander who died on Aug. 27, aged 84, while serving a sentence for war crimes committed during the civil war in former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s.
Mladić was nicknamed the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, and other crimes during the war.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the elements of official support for Mladic’s funeral were “deeply regrettable” and might undermine Serbia’s hopes of joining the bloc.
“They demonstrate a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s recent history and contradict the values underpinning Serbia’s path towards the European Union,” she said in a post on X.
On Wednesday, Vucic issued a decree dissolving the 250-member Parliament in Belgrade and setting the election in motion, which he said was necessary because of ongoing tensions and divisions in the country.
Vucic: Serbians Will Choose ‘Right Path’
“It is important to respect different political opinions, the right to freedom of assembly, and public expression,” Vucic said, adding he was confident Serbians would “choose the right path into the future.”
An aggregation of opinion polls, published by the Europe Elects organization, suggests the opposition Student List may have overtaken SNS in the past few months.
Vucic was first elected president in 2017 and was re-elected in 2022. He is barred from running for a third term and could return to the role of prime minister, which he held between 2014 and 2017.
The SNS board met on Saturday and unanimously nominated Vucic as the lead candidate on its parliamentary election list and its candidate for prime minister, replacing Djuro Macut, an endocrinologist and academic appointed to the post in April 2025.
Among the front-runners for the SNS presidency is the country’s energy minister, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, who started as a news producer at CNN.
People wave national flags as tens of thousands of anti-government protesters gather in central Belgrade, Serbia, on June 28, 2025. Olive Bunic/AFP via Getty Images
Putin Praised ‘Independent’ Foreign Policy
Vucic, who says he wants Serbia to join the EU, has maintained close ties with both Russia and China.
“We recognize and respect the independent foreign policy that Serbia is pursuing under your leadership,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told Vucic during a meeting in September 2025.
Serbia also sits on sizable lithium deposits, which have drawn attention from both China and the EU.
In 2022, the Serbian government revoked a lithium mining license at Jadar to Rio Tinto, a British-Australian company, amid protests by local residents, but in July 2024, the Constitutional Court reinstated the license.
The Jadar project is one of 13 strategic critical mineral projects the EU listed in June 2025.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
English (US) · 
Turkish (TR) · 