Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has signed decrees dissolving the current parliament and calling early parliamentary elections for 25 October 2026. He announced the decision in a televised address and then signed the documents live on air.
The move followed a request from the government, which asked the president on 7 September to dissolve the legislature. The decree dissolving parliament — elected on 17 December 2023 — takes effect upon publication in the Official Gazette. Regular elections to the National Assembly had been due only in December 2027.
Vučić said early elections were needed because of social tension and political divisions. Delaying the vote, he argued, would have put both democracy and preparations for Expo 2027 in Belgrade at risk.
“If there had not been such tension, such political conflicts, elections would of course not have been necessary. But any delay would have endangered both Expo and the preservation of democracy,” the president said. He added that after the vote the country would be able to “emerge from the crisis” and pledged to accept any result, including a victory by his opponents.
The campaign will last about 46 days. The ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has already nominated Vučić as its candidate for prime minister on the “United Serbia” list. To take that post he must resign as president; he has repeatedly said he will do so in the coming days. Parliamentary Speaker Ana Brnabić will then become acting head of state, after which a presidential election must be called within three months.
The snap vote comes against the backdrop of nearly two years of student-led protests. They began after a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad on 1 November 2024, killing 16 people. Demonstrators demanded the government’s resignation and punishment of those responsible, accusing the country’s leadership of corruption and authoritarianism. Vučić has been in power since 2014 — first as prime minister, then as president.
