Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has resigned from office to contest for prime minister in snap parliamentary elections scheduled for October, following nearly two years of student-led protests demanding an early vote.
Vucic announced his resignation on Sunday in a speech from the presidential palace in Belgrade, where supporters had gathered outside chanting his name.
“I am resigning as president,” Vucic said, adding that he would formally hand over his duties to the parliament speaker the following morning.
The snap election was a central demand of a student-led protest movement that began after the collapse of a canopy at a railway station in Novi Sad in November 2024, killing 16 people. Protesters blamed corruption and alleged government failures for the disaster.
The tragedy triggered some of Serbia’s largest demonstrations since the fall of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, with rallies at times attracting hundreds of thousands of people.
What began as calls for a transparent investigation into the Novi Sad disaster later expanded into demands for snap elections. Vucic repeatedly said an early vote could be held but had not previously announced a date.
Earlier this month, he called parliamentary elections for October 25, citing what he described as “major turbulence on the domestic political scene”.
Vucic, who was first elected president in 2017 and re-elected in 2022, cut short his second five-year term to campaign for prime minister, although Serbian law did not require him to resign in order to contest the parliamentary election.
“I want to compete as an ordinary man, as one of the people,” he said.
He will head the electoral list of his right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party and campaign as its candidate for prime minister.
Shortly before announcing his resignation, Vucic exercised his constitutional powers to pardon dozens of people, including students and supporters of his party, who were suspected of offences linked to the protests.
“I have decided to pardon 49 people, 23 of them in connection with the terrible events we have gone through over the past year and a half,” Vucic said.
Following his resignation, parliament speaker Ana Brnabic is expected to become acting president for up to three months. A presidential election must be called during that period.
