The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, dissolved the country’s parliament on Wednesday and called early legislative elections for December 17, the EFE news agency reported.
“We live in times when it is imperative that we are all united in the fight to preserve the vital national and state interests of Serbia,” said the Serbian head of state, after officially announcing the call for elections, through a statement published by Serbian Tanjug news agency.
Aleksandar Vucic had already brought forward the date of the new legislative elections to the end of September, which will coincide with local elections in 65 municipalities throughout the country, including Belgrade.
The dissolution of the Serbian parliament came a day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Aleksandar Vucic and urged him to take concrete steps to facilitate the normalization of relations with Kosovo, a former Serbian province. which Belgrade does not recognize.
In today’s statement, the Head of State warns the population that his country will have to face “many pressures in the near future”, due to relations with Kosovo and other regional and global issues.
The European Union and the United States want Serbia and Kosovo to normalize their relations, within the framework of a dialogue led by Brussels and in which Belgrade adopts sanctions against Russia.
The legislative elections are brought forward more than two years, since the regular term of the current legislature would end in the spring of 2026.
In the last elections, held in April 2022, along with the presidential elections, Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) managed to be re-elected, despite having suffered significant losses.
The “pro-Western” opposition formed a bloc to confront the SNS and the current Serbian president, in power for more than a decade, and whom they accuse of exercising autocratic control over institutions and the media.
Source: TSF
