Text/Hu Yukun
Editor/Qi Fei
Serbia's early National Assembly elections saw a landslide victory for President Vučić and the ruling Serbian Forward Party: on December 17, 2023, Serbia, a coalition of parties centered around the Forward Party, "Serbia Must Not Stop", won more than half of the parliamentary seats needed to form an independent government with nearly 50% of the vote.
Although Vučić himself did not participate in the election, it has long been seen as a vote of confidence in his administration. The controversy surrounding the election fraud has also become a topic of fierce attacks by opposition parties.
On December 17, residents of Belgrade were voting.
Commenting on this election victory, Vučić said in his speech on the 17th: "After such a clear, clear and convincing victory, what is more important for Serbia in the future is that we must change ourselves, we must get rid of the arrogant people who do not want to talk to the people, and show the people that we hear their voices because they cast their votes." ”
Since 2012, Vučić has been in charge of Serbian politics in various roles, and has repeatedly announced early elections. After a tumultuous year, the pragmatic tactics of Vučić and the Kadima Party have worked again in the 2023 final election. However, can this magic weapon of repeated election victories cope with the many challenges that Serbia is facing today?
On December 17, Vučić celebrates his victory at the Kadima headquarters.
Vote for the Forward Party = Vote for Vučić?
"60 percent of the population thinks Vučić is the candidate – whether in national or local elections. This is a huge deception. ”
Talking about another election after 20 months, Rasa Nedeljkov, director of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), a Serbian nonprofit organization and election watchdog, pointed out in a critical tone its most striking feature: Vučić is everywhere except that he is not on the list. It can even be said that he is the only protagonist of the entire election.
On December 17, 2023, Serbia held two simultaneous elections – the National Assembly elections and local elections in 65 municipalities (including the capital, Belgrade). According to the Serbian constitution, the parliament is re-elected every four years, but since 2014, the parliament has held five elections in the past ten years, four of which were due to the announcement of early general elections by the ruling Kamotia government, all of which were decided by Vučić (first prime minister, then president).
This time, the reason why Vučić held parliamentary elections three years earlier was to strengthen the stability and continuity of the government's governance, and to this end, the local elections were also held one year earlier.
Since the summer, in response to a series of protests sparked by two shootings in early May, Vučić has repeatedly made public rumors about a possible date for early elections until a government meeting on September 28 finalizes the agenda. On 1 November, Vučić officially announced the dissolution of parliament and held early parliamentary elections on 17 December.
Two consecutive shootings in early May 2023 shook Serbian society.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first time since 2007 that Serbia has held parliamentary elections in the winter, which has surprised many opposition figures. According to their thinking, the Kadima Party has always avoided voting in the winter because the winter tends to raise the cost of living for the people, which will exacerbate the discontent of the people and make the voter turnout more uncontrollable. The seemingly unconventional move reflects Vučić's leading role in this election.
"My job is to do everything in my power to ensure an absolute majority. After the election, Vučić was blunt in his victory speech. In the parliamentary elections held in April 2022 to coincide with the presidential election, the coalition led by the Kadima Party failed to reach half of the parliamentary seats.
As president, Vučić is not a candidate for parliamentary or local elections. After resigning as chairman of the Move Forward Party in May this year, he also had no position in the party. But it is this "strongman president" whose name does not appear on the ballot that links the main axis of the entire election cycle to its own depth, making it a recognized "vote of confidence in Vučić".
So far this year, Vučić has made more than 250 televised speeches, participated in several campaign campaigns and spared no effort to support Kadima candidates, despite criticism from opposition parties for violating the neutrality of a head of state. And among the various propaganda materials of the Kadima Party, Vučić's name and photo always appear in the most prominent places. In an interview with the BBC, the current Prime Minister, Ana Brnabic, who is also a member of the Move Forward Party, was unabashedly "bound" to it: "The only thing that all the opposition parties can do is [attack] 'Vučić is bad, he is a tyrant, he is a dictator.'" ”
During the riots in northern Kosovo in the summer of 2023, violent clashes broke out between NATO peacekeepers and protesters.
According to the BBC's analysis, the message conveyed by this statement seems to be clear enough: to vote for the Forward Party is to vote for Vučić. A regular parliamentary and local election, in the confrontation of public opinion between the Move Forward Party and the opposition parties around Vučić, was quietly elevated to the "offensive and defensive war" of the Serbian president.
Interestingly, the effect of playing the "Vučić card" has been good for both sides: as of December 20 local time, the "Serbia Must Not Stop" coalition led by the Kadima Party won 130 seats with a whopping 48% of the vote, achieving the goal of "absolute parliamentary majority" that Vucic wanted, and the main pro-European opposition parties cooperated to form the "Big Tent" party coalition "Serbia Stops the Violence" (SPN), which brought together parties of different spectrums from left to center-right to achieve a substantial breakthrough in parliamentary seats.
The results of the Belgrade City Council elections are even more difficult to say: on the one hand, the Kadima Party and its allies have retained their position as the largest party in the city council despite the fact that they have fallen behind in the polls during the election campaign; on the other hand, "Serbia Stop the Violence" has the second largest number of votes and seats, but it is not significantly behind, and the opposition coalition has the potential to turn around in the capital in the "suspended parliament" with no majority.
From this point of view, "Vučić is everywhere" has become the constant theme of the Serbian election, but it is only a natural result.
The "battle for the capital" has become the focus
Compared to the national parliamentary elections, local elections have received less attention, except in the capital Belgrade. The battle for power in the capital has not only become the main battlefield of the December 17 elections, but the outcome has also attracted attention from the outside world.
As the largest city in Serbia and the economic and financial center of the Balkans, Belgrade is home to a quarter of the country's population, and is undoubtedly of great "strategic importance" from an electoral point of view. What's more, in the local elections held in April last year, which coincided with the national elections, the Kadima coalition suffered a rare defeat in Belgrade, losing not only 28 seats in the city council (out of 110 seats), but also the absolute majority it had held for a long time, which was overtaken by the opposition. After several rounds of wrestling, with the support of right-wing allies and some opposition figures, the Move Forward Party was able to take power and form a city government.
Half a year ago, two shootings sparked nationwide protests, undermined the credibility of Vučić and the Kadima Party, and gave the opposition more expectations for the upcoming general election.
On May 3 and 4, 2023, indiscriminate shootings occurred at the Vladislav-Ribnikar Primary School in Belgrade and in the town of Mladenovac near the capital, killing a total of 19 people and injuring 18 others, shocking Serbian society. In particular, the school shooter on the 3rd, a 13-year-old boy armed with a gun, provoked strong public dissatisfaction.
Protests were held in many parts of Serbia, condemning the violence and demanding a cabinet reshuffle. Demonstrators blamed the lack of management of the shooting by the Serbian government's interior and security services as the direct cause of the tragedy, while the opposition party took the opportunity to attack the ruling party-controlled media for "incessantly inciting a culture of violence."
Taking advantage of the social impact of the shootings, 15 political parties across the left, center, right, and Romanian communities formed the "Serbia Stop Violence" coalition on October 27, with the implication of the name, which links the ruling party to "violence."
The opposition coalition formed after the merger showed a clear "additive effect" in terms of support ratings. According to an OfiD poll conducted three days before the election, "Serbia Stops the Violence" outlasted the Kadima coalition with 39.1% support. According to the expectations of the opposition parties, if the opposition coalition becomes the number one political force in the Belgrade City Council, it will hopefully gain the support of the other opposition parties and be the first to seize power from the Forward Party in the capital.
Aleksic, the leader of the opposition coalition, spoke on the day of the opening of the ballots.
The belated result of the vote, which was a day later than the parliamentary election, was undoubtedly disappointing: the Kadima-led coalition "Belgrade Must Not Stop" maintained 40% of the vote and became the largest party in the city council, "Serbia Stop the Violence" came in second with 5% of the vote and seven seats, and the new far-right party formed by pulmonologist and conspiracy theorist Branimir Nestorovich unexpectedly won six seats and became the "kingmaker" of the capital's parliament.
The jury is still out on who will come to power with the help of the election results, but the opposition parties have expressed their disapproval of the results, at least in Belgrade. After the Cypriot Electoral Commission released preliminary official data, "Serbia Stops Violence" launched a two-day protest demonstration, claiming that the election results were invalid and demanding that the Cypriot Electoral Commission abolish them. In the words of the leader of the opposition coalition, Miroslav Aleksich, this election result was a "classic steal."
Opposition groups took to the streets to protest the results of the Belgrade City Council elections.
The opposition's denial of the results of the elections in Belgrade was also based on the various controversies that arose during the election period. For example, although there is no definite basis for the opposition coalition's claim that "40,000 non-local residents were brought to Belgrade" to vote, some civil organizations have noted that on the day of the poll, many buses, minibuses, and automobiles were carried to the capital to vote, and it is said that Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries were brought across the border to vote. In addition to the suspicion of "buying votes" and "filling votes", abnormal changes in the security situation of polling stations are also seen as part of election fraud.
However, the Kadima Party has flatly denied this, and Western countries, which have always been critical of Vučić, have not criticized the election controversy too much. The German Foreign Office, citing reports from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and others, said the phenomenon was "unacceptable" for an EU candidate. While observers for the European Parliament noted "some irregularities", "they were not major incidents".
In 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Vučić in Brussels.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of the election without mentioning the so-called "election irregularities," saying only that the United States "welcomes the opportunity to continue working with the next Serbian government to strengthen democratic governance and the rule of law and promote regional stability."
Vučić also ignored the doubts of the outside world. In response to the election controversy, he replied blithely: "I'm just afraid that some people have miscalculated the results of those elections." He added that whoever has the majority in Belgrade, the important thing is to unite the country and the people. He said the coalition of parties would fight for a professional expo in Belgrade in 2027 and pledged to protect Kosovo and Metohija as part of the territory forever.
Can pragmatism continue to work?
The start of Vučić's last presidency was even more unpleasant than expected. Whether it's the nationwide protests sparked by two consecutive shootings, or the series of crises over the past year surrounding Serb-populated areas in northern Kosovo – including the license plate dispute in the fall of 2022, the election controversy in four northern cities in April 2023, and the ongoing bilateral skirmishes – the start of the new term is a difficult one.
In recent years, there have been ongoing conflicts in Serb-populated areas of northern Kosovo.
Against this backdrop, the just-concluded parliamentary and local elections have achieved the goal of strengthening the ruling foundation of the Move Forward Party, which has played a positive role in boosting Vučić's subsequent administration.
In the eyes of his supporters, Vučić is a pragmatic leader who has successfully overcome severe social divisions and internal antagonisms to dominate Serbia's continued economic development. Critics argue that Vučić's continued efforts to centralize power have undermined the constitutional order and democratic norms. Supporters and opponents alike can deny that Vučić's pragmatism has worked for the past decade.
In Vučić's case, the founder of Kadima joined the Socialist Party in 2012 and became first deputy prime minister two years later, and in 2017, he was elected president with an overwhelming majority of votes, instantly establishing himself as unrivaled in politics. During this period, Serbia's social economy has further emerged from the shadow of disintegration and war in the 1990s, and it has basically been able to handle the Kosovo issue in a manageable manner, maintaining stable relations with the United States and EU countries. As a candidate country for the European Union, Serbia's "accession" process is still slowly advancing.
In the Kadima Party's campaign posters, Vučić is prominently displayed.
At the same time, Florian Bieber, an expert on Balkan ethnic studies at the University of Graz in Austria, pointed out that "the Serbian government has complete control over public institutions and the media at all levels. ”
In response to such arguments, the most common weapon used by the Kadima Party is to hold frequent elections. In the words of Prime Minister Brnabic: "As a political party, we have never run away from elections – if someone thinks we have lost our legitimacy and wants to repeat this, we can do it all the time." No matter how people vote, we will respect it. ”
Internally, he has shaped a "super-stable" political structure with pragmatism, and in foreign policy, Vučić has also handled regional and international affairs with pragmatism.
According to the BBC, Vučić has cultivated good bilateral relations with opposing geopolitical forces. On the one hand, after the election, he once again emphasized his desire to seek Serbia's accession to the European Union while defending its territorial integrity (i.e., with regard to Kosovo) and strengthening his position as a "pro-European" and "nationalist", and on the other hand, he continued to emphasize his traditional friendship with Russia and actively strengthened bilateral economic and trade relations with China.
Vučić has a good personal relationship with Russian President Putin.
On October 17, 2023, Serbia and China signed a free trade agreement in Beijing, becoming the first country in Central and Eastern Europe to sign a free trade agreement with China. The outside world believes that the signing of the free trade agreement will achieve a high level of mutual opening between the two countries, and make Serbia a bridgehead for China's "Belt and Road" cooperation in Europe. Katarina Zakic, director of the Belt and Road Regional Research Center at the Serbian Institute of International Politics and Economics, said bluntly: "It is a great thing for Serbia to work with all global players. ”
This point is vividly reflected in Vučić's handling of relations with Russia. Serbia is a candidate for the European Union, but since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis last year, the Serbian government has refused to follow the EU in sanctioning Russia, and has been accused of helping to break through sanctions and export related technology to Russia. Before the outbreak of the war, Vučić even made a statement that surprised Western public opinion: "No matter what happens, 85% of Serbs are always on the side of Russia." In return, Russia supports Serbia's position in any international arena and opposes the international recognition of Kosovo's independence.
Zorana Mihajlovic, Serbia's former first deputy prime minister and who has quit the Kadima party, believes that Vučić is not an instinctive pro-Russian, but a pure pragmatist. "The more isolated Serbia is [from the EU], the more it has a grip on power. ”
Vučić-style pragmatism has withstood the electoral test, but subtle changes in civil society have doomed it to be challenged.
In terms of Vucic's two major post-election pledges – to join the European Union and defend territorial integrity – opinion polls since 2023 show that the proportion of Serbs who support EU membership has slowly recovered, but only three to four percent, which cannot exceed the proportion of opponents. On the more sensitive Kosovo issue, a pre-election poll conducted by the Serbian non-governmental organization "European Affairs Agency" showed that 69.8 percent of the people oppose recognizing Kosovo's independence in exchange for joining the European Union, and most of the respondents between the ages of 30 and 44 are pessimistic that "Serbia has lost Kosovo forever," and even more people do not know what the government's plans are for the Kosovo issue.
At the beginning of 2023, Vučić signaled that he was willing to formally normalize relations with Kosovo (but not sign any agreement) to ensure that Serbia's "accession to the EU" was not blocked. This statement was immediately protested by Serbian nationalists and accused by opposition parties of "treason". It can be seen that in the wave of populism led and shaped by Vučić, pragmatism is not an easy task after all.
In the coming year, the political arena in many parts of the world will usher in a reshuffle, which will also bring new challenges to Serbia. At an event in November 2023, Vučić admitted that the 2024 elections in the United States, Russia, Ukraine and even Taiwan, will bring more risks to Serbia and the world. "I fear that this year will bring us more conflict and turmoil than in 2022 and 2023. In speaking of this, I am also thinking of all the threats facing Kosovo and Metohija, the Republika Srpska (i.e., the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and other populations in the region. ”
As a result of the shooting, Serbian people staged demonstrations.
With labels such as "pro-European", "ambiguous", and populist, will Vučić's pragmatism achieve the country's development goals, or will it lead to another snap election? (The author is a member of the Translators Association of China and an international politics columnist)