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29-06-2025
BELGRADE: Serbian police have clashed with a huge crowd of anti-government protesters demanding an early election and end to President Aleksandar Vucic’s 12-year rule in the capital Belgrade.
A sea of around 140,000 protesters rallied in the city, the largest turnout in recent months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government. “We want elections!” the crowd chanted.
Dozens have been arrested, with riot police seen firing tear gas and stun grenades.
President Vucic accused protesters calling for an election of being part of a foreign plot trying to usurp his country. “They wanted to topple Serbia, and they have failed,” he wrote on his Instagram page.
On Friday, five people were detained, accused of plotting to overthrow the government, according to a statement from Serbia’s Higher Court in Belgrade.
Following the clashes, the police minister strongly condemned violence by protesters and said those responsible would be arrested.
Months of protests across the country including university shutdowns have rattled Vucic, whose second term ends in 2027 when there are also parliamentary elections scheduled.
Sladjana Lojanovic, 37, a farmer from the town of Sid in the north, said on Saturday she came to support students.
“The institutions have been usurped and… there is a lot of corruption. Elections are the solution, but I don’t think he (Vucic) will want to go peacefully,” she told media.
The president has previously refused snap elections. His Progressive Party-led coalition holds 156 of 250 parliamentary seats.
Vucic’s opponents accuse him and his allies of ties to organized crime, corruption, violence against rivals and curbing media freedoms, which they deny.
He has maintained close ties to Russia, and Serbia, a candidate for EU membership has not joined the Western sanctions regime imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Protests by students, opposition, teachers, workers and farmers began last December after 16 people died on 1 November in the collapse of Novi Sad railway station’s roof. Protesters blame corruption for the disaster.
The accident has already forced the former prime minister to resign.
As Saturday’s protest ended, organizers played a statement to the crowd, calling for Serbians to “take freedom into your own hands” and giving them the “green light”.
“The authorities had all the mechanisms and all the time to meet the demands and prevent an escalation,” the organizers said in a statement on Instagram after the rally.
“Instead, they opted for violence and repression against the people. Any radicalization of the situation is their responsibility.”
In January, Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic has resigned, following nationwide protests over the deadly collapse of a railway station canopy.
He said he had acted “to avoid further complicating things” and so as to “not further raise tensions in society”.
Fifteen people died in November when a concrete canopy at a railway station collapsed in the city of Novi Sad. Tens of thousands of people have been regularly taking to the streets since then, demanding accountability for the collapse and protesting against corruption.
In a TV address late on Tuesday, President Aleksandar Vucic said he would decide within the next 10 days on whether to hold parliamentary elections or form a new government. (Int’l News Desk)
