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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has dissolved parliament and called an early legislative election for October 25, meeting a key demand of the country’s long-running protest movement.
The parliamentary election was originally scheduled for December 2027, but Vucic announced the snap election on Wednesday following nearly two years of anti-government demonstrations.
In a nationally televised address, Vucic said the election would take place on October 25, citing prolonged political turbulence in the country and the need for voters to clearly express their choice.
“I am calling parliamentary elections for October 25,” Vucic said.
The protests began after the November 2024 collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad killed 16 people. The incident was widely blamed on entrenched corruption and triggered some of the largest demonstrations in Serbia since the fall of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
What began as calls for a transparent investigation later developed into demands for early parliamentary elections.
Vucic had repeatedly promised a snap vote but had not previously announced a date.
The protest movement grew out of student-led university blockades, with demonstrators demanding early elections since May 2025. The students are also preparing their own electoral list for the vote.
The movement represents the strongest challenge yet to Vucic, 56, who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade as either prime minister or president.
Vucic and his allies have accused the student demonstrators of attempting to orchestrate a “foreign-funded revolution,” an allegation he repeated while announcing the election.
He also cited what he described as foreign interference, involvement by foreign powers, unrest and clashes, saying the country had become increasingly divided.
Vucic, who was first elected president in 2017 and re-elected in 2022, has recently said he would resign after formally calling the election to campaign, signalling a possible return to the prime minister’s office.
His right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party agreed at a weekend meeting to ask him to lead its electoral list and run as its candidate for prime minister.
