President Aleksandar Vucic, who has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade, told a rally of supporters in Belgrade on Saturday that he would resign within weeks and call early elections — a remarkable retreat for a leader who had spent months resisting exactly that demand.
A pledge without a date
"I will be president for several weeks more and then I will submit my resignation," Vucic told the crowd at an event for his governing Serbian Progressive Party. He said he would campaign for the party in the elections that follow.
Vucic offered no firm date for his departure or for the vote. Under Serbia's constitution, elections must be called within 90 days of a president stepping down, with the speaker of parliament serving as acting head of state in the interim, the Associated Press reported.
The disaster that lit the fuse
The protest movement that cornered Vucic traces back to November 1, 2024, when a large concrete canopy at the renovated main railway station in Novi Sad collapsed onto people below. Sixteen people ultimately died, with the toll rising from an initial count as some of the injured later succumbed.
The station had been refurbished as part of an infrastructure push backed by Chinese financing, and protesters blamed the deaths on official negligence and entrenched corruption in the construction sector. A local tragedy became a national one. The demonstrations that followed were among the largest Serbia has seen since the popular uprising that toppled Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
A movement that would not quit
Led largely by university students, the protests spread from Novi Sad to Belgrade and across the country, with demonstrators demanding accountability for the collapse and early elections. Hundreds were detained over the course of the movement, and European officials documented instances of excessive police force.
The pressure produced casualties in the government well before Saturday. The construction minister resigned within days of the collapse, and Prime Minister Milos Vucevic stepped down in January 2025 after violence against student demonstrators drew widespread anger. Vucic, though, held on — at times dismissing the protesters as agents of foreign powers seeking to destabilize the country.
A calculation, not necessarily an exit
Opposition figures and analysts greeted Vucic's pledge with caution. He set no timeline, named no election date, and closed his remarks with a campaign-style boast that his party would "win more convincingly than ever before." Having served two presidential terms — the constitutional limit — Vucic cannot run for the presidency again. But power in Serbia has long tracked Vucic rather than any particular office, and a strong showing by his party could allow him to return as prime minister while an ally takes the presidency.
Student organizers, who have sustained the movement for more than a year, signaled they would keep up the pressure regardless, pressing for genuine early elections rather than a managed transition.
