Elections in Serbia: a triple ballot and a plebiscite for Aleksandar Vucic?

A woman walks past an election billboard of President Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party in Belgrade on March 28.

AP - Darko Vojinovic

Text by: Jean-Arnault Dérens Follow

3 mins

The Serbs are summoned this Sunday, April 3 to a triple ballot: a presidential election, early legislative elections and municipal elections in certain cities including Belgrade.

Absolute master of Serbia for ten years, President Aleksandar Vucic hopes to obtain a new plebiscite.

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From our correspondent in Belgrade

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The campaign took place in a heavy climate.

Almost all of the media, in particular television and the tabloid press, are controlled by the government and the Serbian Progressive Party.

The formation of President Aleksandar Vucic multiplies direct pressure on voters, both by threatening some with losing their jobs if they do not vote for him, and by offering others firewood, even fridges, as has been attested in several cities.

Retirees, very numerous in a country which is emptying of its population, represent a particularly coveted target.

► Also to listen: Serbia: President Aleksandar Vucic, more popular than ever

Despite this, the opposition, which had boycotted the last legislative elections in 2020, is sure to return to Parliament and even hopes to prevent the re-election of Aleksandar Vucic in the first round of the presidential election.

More than 3,000 people signed up with the CRTA, an independent body, to monitor the conduct of the ballot: a higher than usual figure which reflects the hope for change and the desire of many voters not to let their voices fly.

The level of participation will in any case be one of the keys to the ballot.

Unprecedented environmental mobilizations

In recent years, Serbia has experienced ecological mobilizations on an unprecedented scale. There have been very strong mobilizations against the micro-hydropower projects that abound in the country, at the risk of depriving villages entire valleys, and especially against lithium mining projects, this new white gold, essential for electric batteries.

Serbia is said to hold 10% of the world's reserves, mainly in the agricultural regions of the center-west, where the regime feared that its conservative and rural base would slip away.

Aleksandar Vucic has therefore announced

carried out by the mining giant Rio Tinto, but everyone expects to see them resume after the elections, as the financial stakes are enormous.

A newcomer to the political scene, the left-wing ecologist coalition Moramo hopes, in any case, to capitalize on this anger at the ballot box and even dreams of creating a surprise in the municipal elections in Belgrade, where the population has mobilized a lot against the projects buildings that have disfigured the city.

The war in Ukraine hits the countryside

However,

has hit the countryside hard.

This war could well benefit the regime in place.

Serbia is officially neutral, it has voted the United Nations resolutions condemning Russia, but it refuses to apply European sanctions against Moscow, even though it is officially a candidate for integration.

While public opinion is very divided, with an openly Russophile extreme right, the regime immediately understood the advantage it could take from the international situation, and campaigned by contenting itself with hammering three: peace, stability, Vucic.

The war in Ukraine has in any case made it possible to push all other questions into the background, whether it be the economic and social situation of the country, the exodus of the population, corruption or the drift authoritarian regime.

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• Serbia

• Aleksandar Vucic