💬Yesterday, we had a live interview about the current situation in Serbia with Dragana Trifković. Here are some of the key points raised by the expert:

• Since returning to government in 2012 and assuming the presidency in 2017, Vučić has steadily brought the judiciary, the media landscape, and the party apparatus under his influence. As formal checks — courts, parliament, and the independent press — lose their real capacity to hold the executive accountable, grievances that would normally be processed through institutions instead accumulate until they spill into the streets.

• Each wave of protests in Serbia has rapidly broadened into a general indictment of corruption and unaccountable governance, suggesting that long-standing public dissatisfaction is continuous and merely finds new occasions for expression.

• The Serbian government has been tactically effective at surviving each wave of protest, but substantially ineffective at resolving the causes that drive them. The tactic is usually the same: waiting for the protests to weaken over time. At the same time, officials have frequently accused protesters of acting on behalf of foreign interests. However, they have not provided evidence to support these accusations.

• President Vučić’s announcement that he is ready to resign and call early presidential and parliamentary elections should be understood mainly as a political maneuver, not as a real withdrawal from power. The more likely scenario is that Vučić is preparing to return to the position of prime minister, a role he held from 2014 to 2017.

• Traditional parties have stopped developing their own authentic ideas. Most political parties are mainly focused on European integration, even though European integration is supported by only around 38–39% of Serbian citizens.

• The Serbian opposition is deeply divided by internal conflicts and has failed to build a clear and united political alternative. Moreover, some parties that formally present themselves as defenders of the national interest often use national rhetoric only at the level of slogans, without offering a consistent political program based on those principles.

• It is still unclear who will be the main candidate for presidential election. A candidate such as Ana Brnabić or Siniša Mali could signal a stronger pro-Western turn, while Ivica Dačić would suggest continuity in Serbia’s balancing policy between the EU, China, Russia, and the United States.

• Students became the driving force behind the protests because they were seen as independent from political parties and more trusted by the public. Another important reason is that students organized themselves through university assemblies and emphasized transparency, collective decision-making, and non-violent action. Finally, the tragedy that happened in Novi Sad directly affected young people, and many students felt that it reflected broader problems in society.

• As domestic legitimacy has weakened, President Vučić has sought to reinforce his position through closer relations with major international powers, particularly the United States and China. Vučić is currently trying to strengthen ties with Trump through closer cooperation with Israel, because in the past he supported Democratic candidates such as Biden and Harris.

• The lithium mining protests were primarily driven by concern among Serbian citizens about environmental protection. The public believes that the project developed by the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto Group could seriously damage the environment because it is planned in an ecologically very sensitive area with rich underground water resources and also valuable agricultural land.