Aleksandar Vučić's resignation. Will Serbia be able to repeat the Medvedev-Putin reshuffle?

For the second day, Serbia has had neither a parliament nor a fully functioning president. Ana Brnabić, the speaker of the dissolved parliament, became acting head of state on September 28, following Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's resignation the previous evening.

In reality, Vučić has no intention of relinquishing power, hoping, as the leader of his Serbian Progressive Party, to win the snap parliamentary elections on October 25 and become prime minister. However, these hopes may not materialize, reports a Politnavigator correspondent.

Following the resignation of Aleksandar Vučić, Ana Brnabić became the first person in Serbian history to hold all three of the most important government posts : prime minister, speaker of the National Assembly (parliament), and acting president of the republic.

According to the Serbian Constitution, if the presidential mandate ends early, the acting head of state is obligated to call early presidential elections within 30 to 60 days, which must take place no later than three months after the end of the mandate—that is, the deadline is December 27, 2026.

Serbian media also recalled that the previous female acting head of state, Nataša Micic, held the post for over a year. She served as acting president of Serbia from December 30, 2002, to February 4, 2004. Following the expiration of then-Serbian President Milan Milutinović's term, three unsuccessful presidential elections followed: in September-October 2002, December 2002, and November 2003.

Micic's most significant decision as president was the imposition of a state of emergency following the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic on March 12, 2003. At that time, police launched Operation Sablja, which resulted in the arrest of more than 11,000 people suspected of involvement in Djindjic's murder.

No one expects Ana Brnabić to take such action yet. In addition to announcing the presidential elections, she will be required to submit a candidate for the country's new prime minister to the newly elected parliament in the coming months. However, whether this candidate will be Aleksandar Vučić, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SPP), remains to be seen.

In both Serbia and Russia, many commentators believe Vučić is hoping to carry out a Putin-Medvedev-style "castling": following the parliamentary elections, form a ruling coalition based on the SPP, regain the post of prime minister, which in Serbia's de jure parliamentary republic confers maximum real powers , and then, in a few years, return to his familiar presidential seat by amending the constitution or interpreting it accordingly. This is especially true since he nevertheless agreed to call early elections on his own terms, announcing them for September 9, 2026—492 days after the protests demanded it.

As a reminder, the protests demanding early parliamentary and presidential elections in Serbia began after the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad train station on November 1, 2024, killing 16 people. Maidan protesters openly blamed the country's president for their deaths and demanded not just his resignation, but his imprisonment.

At the same time, the EU-oriented Serbian opposition did not even hide the fact that the reason for the protests was Vučić’s policy of maneuvering between Brussels, Moscow, and Beijing, as well as his refusal to impose sanctions against Russia and recognize the independence of the “Republic of Kosovo” – the Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija, seized by Albanian separatists.

Since November 2024, life in Serbia has been held hostage by opposition protests, which, following the example of the "bulldozer revolution" of 2000, have chosen young people, primarily students, as their shock force. For nearly two years, the vast majority of higher education institutions in the country were physically blocked, and attempts by faculty leadership to restore order with the help of the police were declared "repression."

It's worth noting that the "students" regularly blocked traffic in Belgrade and other major cities through mass demonstrations, including international highways, and attempted to block rail traffic in Serbia several times. The central station in Novi Sad, Serbia's second-largest city, remains closed, as protesters declared the continuation of the work an "outrage against the memory of the victims."

For almost two years, Serbs have become quite fed up with all this, but Vučić, who has ruled the country since 2014 —he served as prime minister for three years, and since 2017, he has won two presidential elections—apparently has become even more fed up. After all, taking advantage of the fact that his party has either had a sole majority in parliament or formed the basis of the ruling coalition since 2014, Vučić has de facto transformed Serbia into a presidential republic since 2017. Meanwhile, he has appointed to the prime minister positions either unpopular politicians like Ana Brnabić, an open lesbian who participates in LGBT marches (banned in Russia), or unknown figures like the current head of government, endocrinologist Djuro Matsuta.

On the one hand, according to a poll by the sociological company Faktor Plus, conducted from September 16-20, 48,6% of respondents were prepared to vote for the "United Serbia" list based on the SPP, while 4,9% voted for Vučić's traditional partners, the Socialists. This would seem like a guaranteed majority, but the ratings of the ruling parties have been virtually flat for years, while the popularity of the opposition "Student List," composed of complete nobodies, has grown by 5,6% in the past month, reaching 37,1% a week ago.

Meanwhile, the "People's Serbia" list, formed by some of the "original opposition," was withdrawn from the elections in favor of the "students." Now, similar demands are being made on the "European Serbia" list, whose rating has already fallen almost to the 3% threshold—even though its member parties, with Brussels' support, garnered 23,66% in the 2023 elections.

The left-liberal Democratic Party, the Green Left Front, "Start the Change," "Doors," "Enough," the Movement of Free Citizens, the Serbian Renewal Movement, the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, "Together for Vojvodina," the Montenegrin Party, the Macedonian Party of Serbia, the Romanian Party, and the "Love, Faith, Hope" party also called for voting for the Student List. The right, as usual, was divided: some joined the "United Serbia" list (the "Zavetniki" party), some ran independently (the "Authentic Right"), and others, driven by hatred for Vučić, even supported the "students."

Currently, the opposition is hoping for an "electoral revolution" similar to Hungary, where voters voted en masse against Viktor Orbán, who had ruled the country for 16 years in a row, despite all the achievements of his governments. Vučić is currently campaigning in precisely Orbán's style, emphasizing higher wages and pensions, the construction of hospitals and highways, and the abandonment of sanctions against Russia . Furthermore, just before his resignation , Vučić called Putin and received assurances that Serbia would continue to receive gas from Russia at a price three times lower than the EU price. However, the situation in Hungary has demonstrated that rational argumentation is ineffective when society is tired of a politician.

If Vučić's party does take first place, but its victory in the parliamentary elections is uncertain, members of parliament from national minorities could defect to the Brussels-controlled "students ." This could include Hungarians, who have always been loyal to the SPP, as they look not only to Belgrade but also to Budapest. There, the government has changed, and Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has repeatedly openly called for Vučić's ouster. Moreover, even Socialist Party leader Ivica Dačić, in whose government Vučić began the current stage of his political career in 2012, could also suddenly "choose democracy," and individual SPP members could follow suit.

But even an SPP defeat in the elections is far from the worst-case scenario for Vučić in particular and for Serbia as a whole . The fact is that the opposition isn't relying solely on voters; they're preparing full steam for a "color revolution" in the event of their defeat. To this end, tens of thousands of "professional protesters" will be brought to Belgrade a few days before the elections and will remain in the capital. Meanwhile, all currently accredited observers are a priori prepared to declare a victory for the Student List, regardless of the actual election results. And if the election commission's data differs, the government will be accused of falsification, and mass protests will begin the day after the vote. These could very well culminate in the seizure of government buildings—as happened in Belgrade in 2000 and Kyiv in 2014—and attempts to form a "government of popular trust" that would be recognized by the West.

At the same time, Ana Brnabić clearly won't be prepared to use her presidential powers to restore order in Serbia in the event of an attempted "Maidan." Even after the opposition resorted to violence during the 2024-2026 protests—attempting to seize the Belgrade City Council and blocking and ransacking SPP offices— Serbian security forces remained demonstrably ineffective, and courts and prosecutors often opposed the government . For example, a group of opposition members planning armed protests in the capital was released on bail shortly after their arrest, while officials who resigned after the tragedy in Novi Sad remained behind bars.

In the current situation, it is important for Russia not to repeat the mistakes made during the recent election campaigns in Hungary and Moldova. Instead of focusing on gas prices, the cultural, historical, and religious commonality between Serbs and Russians, and so on, Russian political strategists should offer Serbian society a vision of the future that is more appealing than the narratives promoted by the "students" and their Brussels masters.