Since the 2023 parliamentary elections, the political landscape in Serbia has changed considerably: a new political actor has emerged - the Student Movement - with a demonstrated capacity to mobilise broad public support and to match the ruling coalition.
The "Students in Blockade" organised some of the largest public gatherings in Serbia: Belgrade, 22 December 2024 (100,000 people, AJS); Belgrade, 15 March 2025 (275,000-325,000, AJS); Novi Sad, 1 November 2025 (110,000, AJS).
The "Students in Blockade", who blocked universities in Serbia from December 2024 until mid-2025,
The university blockades and the student protests began after 16 people lost their lives when the canopy of the recently renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed on 1 November 2024.
in May 2025 called for snap elections to be held, after the authorities had spent six months failing to meet their demands despite the largest protests in the history of Serbia.
Early elections are not an exception in Serbia. Four of the last five parliamentary elections were snap, and with parliamentary, presidential and local cycles alternating, the country has been in, what amounts to, a continuous pre-election campaign for fifteen years. For the ruling majority, snap elections have become a routine instrument - a way of renewing and reconfirming its mandate at a moment of its own choosing. Consistent with that pattern, in late 2024 and early 2025, at the very outset of the protests, the authorities again raised the possibility of elections, and even of an advisory referendum on confidence in the President; the Government resigned in January 2025.
This time, however, the pattern did not repeat. Although snap elections had long been the instrument through which the authorities picked a favourable moment, under the new circumstances they judged that elections would bring more risk than benefit. In April 2025 a new Government of Serbia was elected, headed by the politically anonymous Prime Minister Đuro Macut. Instead of channelling the political crisis into elections, as it had previously done, the ruling majority chose delay and buying of time - a significant change of strategy.
Early elections are not an exception in Serbia. Four of the last five parliamentary elections were snap, and with parliamentary, presidential and local cycles alternating, the country has been in, what amounts to, a continuous pre-election campaign for fifteen years. For the ruling majority, snap elections have become a routine instrument - a way of renewing and reconfirming its mandate at a moment of its own choosing. Consistent with that pattern, in late 2024 and early 2025, at the very outset of the protests, the authorities again raised the possibility of elections, and even of an advisory referendum on confidence in the President; the Government resigned in January 2025.
This time, however, the pattern did not repeat. Although snap elections had long been the instrument through which the authorities picked a favourable moment, under the new circumstances they judged that elections would bring more risk than benefit. In April 2025 a new Government of Serbia was elected, headed by the politically anonymous Prime Minister Đuro Macut. Instead of channelling the political crisis into elections, as it had previously done, the ruling majority chose delay and buying of time - a significant change of strategy.
Three phenomena that decisively shape the context
The social and political context in Serbia ahead of the announced elections is marked by three phenomena that have long been present but have grown significantly over the past two years: deep polarisation in society, the threat of violence, and the equating of the state with the ruling party.
Polarisation
The clear divisions in society across a range of questions are seen most sharply through two prisms: which political actor citizens support, and which media they follow.
Two Serbias, by political preference
Share of citizens holding each view, by the list they vote for
SNS votersStudent List voters
Source: CRTA / Stanford DAL survey, June 2026 · face-to-face · n=2,324 · values = share holding the view
Data from CRTA's June public opinion survey
CRTA, CRTA-Stanford public opinion survey, June 2026, https://link.crta.rs/wo
indicate that the poles in society cluster clearly around two centres of gravity - the media people follow and the political option they support. SNS voters follow pro-government media, have relatively high trust in institutions, a low degree of attachment to democracy, and lean far more towards Russia than towards the European Union.
Two information worlds, by media
Share of citizens holding each view, by the media they follow
Pink, Happy, InformerN1 and Nova S
Source: CRTA / Stanford DAL survey, June 2026 · face-to-face · n=2,324 · values = share holding the view
On the other side, citizens who identify as supporters of the Student List hold, by a convincing majority, that democracy is the best form of government, identify corruption as the country's greatest problem, and get their information from independent media - which are themselves in the process of changing ownership.
On the well-founded assumption that the new ownership structure will lead to a turn in editorial policy; see further the chapter on the media.
Social dialogue
The division in society is inseparably bound up with the absence of political and institutional dialogue. President Vučić has issued several invitations to dialogue, including consultations with political parties in April 2026 on snap elections and on the country's foreign policy direction. None of those invitations, however, was received favourably on the other side of the political spectrum: most opposition parties and the Student Movement were not part of those talks. Some parties and parliamentary groups have been boycotting the work of the National Assembly for more than a year (DS, DSS).
Set against these sporadic invitations to dialogue, representatives of the authorities and pro-government media have been running a continuous campaign to discredit those who hold different views. Between January and August 2026, CRTA's media monitoring recorded more than 600 manipulative headlines discrediting those who hold different views - and that is counting only the lead items in the main television news programmes and the front pages of newspapers. The dramatically narrowed space for dialogue is also reflected in the chronic absence of pluralism in the most influential media and at the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Through three years of monitoring pluralism in the country's most-watched evening news programme - RTS's Dnevnik 2 - CRTA established that the ratio of average airtime given to political representatives of the authorities and of the opposition stood at 91 per cent to 9 per cent over the period from 2022 to 2024.
Polarisation and the impossibility of consensus are also visible in several important bodies whose members are elected from different constituencies, such as the High Prosecutorial Council Savremena politika (28 April 2026) „Ponovo nije izabran predsednik Visokog saveta tužilaštva", https://link.crta.rs/wb and the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), Cenzolovka (1 September 2026) „Ni treći put predsednik Saveta REM-a nije izabran: Ko koga vuče za nos i isteruje mak na konac?", https://link.crta.rs/wp which are unable either to elect a president or to adopt decisions, and therefore do not discharge the mandate the law assigns them.
Set against these sporadic invitations to dialogue, representatives of the authorities and pro-government media have been running a continuous campaign to discredit those who hold different views. Between January and August 2026, CRTA's media monitoring recorded more than 600 manipulative headlines discrediting those who hold different views - and that is counting only the lead items in the main television news programmes and the front pages of newspapers. The dramatically narrowed space for dialogue is also reflected in the chronic absence of pluralism in the most influential media and at the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Through three years of monitoring pluralism in the country's most-watched evening news programme - RTS's Dnevnik 2 - CRTA established that the ratio of average airtime given to political representatives of the authorities and of the opposition stood at 91 per cent to 9 per cent over the period from 2022 to 2024.
Polarisation and the impossibility of consensus are also visible in several important bodies whose members are elected from different constituencies, such as the High Prosecutorial Council Savremena politika (28 April 2026) „Ponovo nije izabran predsednik Visokog saveta tužilaštva", https://link.crta.rs/wb and the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), Cenzolovka (1 September 2026) „Ni treći put predsednik Saveta REM-a nije izabran: Ko koga vuče za nos i isteruje mak na konac?", https://link.crta.rs/wp which are unable either to elect a president or to adopt decisions, and therefore do not discharge the mandate the law assigns them.
The threat of violence
The division in society is inseparably bound up with the absence of political and institutional dialogue. President Vučić has issued several invitations to dialogue, including consultations with political parties in April 2026 on snap elections and on the country's foreign policy direction. None of those invitations, however, was received favourably on the other side of the political spectrum: most opposition parties and the Student Movement were not part of those talks. Some parties and parliamentary groups have been boycotting the work of the National Assembly for more than a year (DS, DSS).
Set against these sporadic invitations to dialogue, representatives of the authorities and pro-government media have been running a continuous campaign to discredit those who hold different views. Between January and August 2026, CRTA's media monitoring recorded more than 600 manipulative headlines discrediting those who hold different views - and that is counting only the lead items in the main television news programmes and the front pages of newspapers. The dramatically narrowed space for dialogue is also reflected in the chronic absence of pluralism in the most influential media and at the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Through three years of monitoring pluralism in the country's most-watched evening news programme - RTS's Dnevnik 2 - CRTA established that the ratio of average airtime given to political representatives of the authorities and of the opposition stood at 91 per cent to 9 per cent over the period from 2022 to 2024.
Polarisation and the impossibility of consensus are also visible in several important bodies whose members are elected from different constituencies, such as the High Prosecutorial Council Savremena politika (28 April 2026) „Ponovo nije izabran predsednik Visokog saveta tužilaštva", https://link.crta.rs/wb and the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), Cenzolovka (1 September 2026) „Ni treći put predsednik Saveta REM-a nije izabran: Ko koga vuče za nos i isteruje mak na konac?", https://link.crta.rs/wp which are unable either to elect a president or to adopt decisions, and therefore do not discharge the mandate the law assigns them.
The "sound cannon" case - that is, the alleged use of an acoustic device against citizens who were silently paying tribute to the victims during the Belgrade protest that drew more than 300,000 people in March 2025. Civil society organisations collected more than 4,000 citizens' testimonies „Svedočanstva zvučnog napada", database of citizens' testimonies on the events of 15 March 2025, https://link.crta.rs/wr describing what people experienced; experts from Earshot concluded, on the basis of forensic analysis Earshot (6 June 2025) "Sonic Attack on a Silent Vigil", https://link.crta.rs/wi and interviews with witnesses and victims, that an LRAD had most probably been used against those present. Representatives of the authorities initially denied possessing an LRAD; they then maintained that it had not been "unpacked", Danas (18 March 2025) „Ivica Dačić za Danas: Prvobitna izjava da MUP nema zvučni top je bila nespretna", https://link.crta.rs/wj and after images of LRAD devices mounted on police vehicles that day were made public, they maintained that it had not been deployed. Radio Slobodna Evropa (19 March 2025) „Od Srbija nema 'zvučni top', do Srbija ima 'zvučni top': Hronologija kontradiktornih izjava", https://link.crta.rs/wk More than a year after the event, the Higher Public Prosecution Office began questioning individuals who had claimed that the sound cannon was used, on the argument that in doing so they had committed an offence against the constitutional order. One indictment has been filed, against the analyst Aleksandar Radić, CRTA Plus (17 July 2026) „Vojni analitičar optužen zbog tvrdnji o zvučnom topu, zatražena potraga pošto je napustio Srbiju", https://link.crta.rs/wl who was the first to speak publicly about the sound cannon. In April 2025, acting on an application by 47 citizens of Serbia, the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure CRTA (30 April 2025) „Evropski sud za ljudska prava naložio Srbiji da se uzdrži od upotrebe zvučnih uređaja za kontrolu okupljenih građana", https://link.crta.rs/w7 requiring Serbia to refrain, for the time being, from using acoustic devices to control assembled citizens.
Representatives of the authorities and officials of the ruling party consistently blame the violence on "blokaderi" (blockaders) - the label the authorities apply to demonstrators - that is, on citizens of an opposition disposition. The claim of a "violent seizure of power" and of a "colour revolution" is advanced almost daily (around 10,000 mentions of a colour revolution on the most-visited news portals in 2025, and around 1,900 in 2026). Several dozen people Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights - YUCOM (16 July 2025) „Optužba za nasilno rušenje ustavnog poretka u službi obračuna s političkim protivnicima?", https://link.crta.rs/w8 have been charged with criminal offences against the constitutional order, largely on the basis of intercepted meetings, intercepted messages or statements made in the media. Representatives of the authorities consistently accuse Euronews Srbija (7 January 2026) „Vučić: Nemamo suštinsku opoziciju, sve kontrolišu strani centri moći", https://link.crta.rs/xp "foreign powers and intelligence services" of supporting, financing or instigating a "colour revolution", Istinomer (5 November 2025) „Nisam proglasio pobedu nad 'obojenom revolucijom'", assessment of a statement by Aleksandar Vučić, https://link.crta.rs/ws with the implication that Western European countries and Croatia are meant. In this narrative of a "colour revolution", the Serbian authorities receive public backing from the Russian intelligence service Radio Slobodna Evropa (15 September 2025) „Ruska obaveštajna služba optužuje EU da stoji iza protesta i targetira medije u Srbiji", https://link.crta.rs/wa and from Russian officials. RT Balkan (30 June 2025) „Kremlj: Mogući tragovi obojene revolucije u Srbiji, imamo poverenja u Beograd", https://link.crta.rs/w9
Set against these sporadic invitations to dialogue, representatives of the authorities and pro-government media have been running a continuous campaign to discredit those who hold different views. Between January and August 2026, CRTA's media monitoring recorded more than 600 manipulative headlines discrediting those who hold different views - and that is counting only the lead items in the main television news programmes and the front pages of newspapers. The dramatically narrowed space for dialogue is also reflected in the chronic absence of pluralism in the most influential media and at the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Through three years of monitoring pluralism in the country's most-watched evening news programme - RTS's Dnevnik 2 - CRTA established that the ratio of average airtime given to political representatives of the authorities and of the opposition stood at 91 per cent to 9 per cent over the period from 2022 to 2024.
Polarisation and the impossibility of consensus are also visible in several important bodies whose members are elected from different constituencies, such as the High Prosecutorial Council Savremena politika (28 April 2026) „Ponovo nije izabran predsednik Visokog saveta tužilaštva", https://link.crta.rs/wb and the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), Cenzolovka (1 September 2026) „Ni treći put predsednik Saveta REM-a nije izabran: Ko koga vuče za nos i isteruje mak na konac?", https://link.crta.rs/wp which are unable either to elect a president or to adopt decisions, and therefore do not discharge the mandate the law assigns them.
The "sound cannon" case - that is, the alleged use of an acoustic device against citizens who were silently paying tribute to the victims during the Belgrade protest that drew more than 300,000 people in March 2025. Civil society organisations collected more than 4,000 citizens' testimonies „Svedočanstva zvučnog napada", database of citizens' testimonies on the events of 15 March 2025, https://link.crta.rs/wr describing what people experienced; experts from Earshot concluded, on the basis of forensic analysis Earshot (6 June 2025) "Sonic Attack on a Silent Vigil", https://link.crta.rs/wi and interviews with witnesses and victims, that an LRAD had most probably been used against those present. Representatives of the authorities initially denied possessing an LRAD; they then maintained that it had not been "unpacked", Danas (18 March 2025) „Ivica Dačić za Danas: Prvobitna izjava da MUP nema zvučni top je bila nespretna", https://link.crta.rs/wj and after images of LRAD devices mounted on police vehicles that day were made public, they maintained that it had not been deployed. Radio Slobodna Evropa (19 March 2025) „Od Srbija nema 'zvučni top', do Srbija ima 'zvučni top': Hronologija kontradiktornih izjava", https://link.crta.rs/wk More than a year after the event, the Higher Public Prosecution Office began questioning individuals who had claimed that the sound cannon was used, on the argument that in doing so they had committed an offence against the constitutional order. One indictment has been filed, against the analyst Aleksandar Radić, CRTA Plus (17 July 2026) „Vojni analitičar optužen zbog tvrdnji o zvučnom topu, zatražena potraga pošto je napustio Srbiju", https://link.crta.rs/wl who was the first to speak publicly about the sound cannon. In April 2025, acting on an application by 47 citizens of Serbia, the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure CRTA (30 April 2025) „Evropski sud za ljudska prava naložio Srbiji da se uzdrži od upotrebe zvučnih uređaja za kontrolu okupljenih građana", https://link.crta.rs/w7 requiring Serbia to refrain, for the time being, from using acoustic devices to control assembled citizens.
Representatives of the authorities and officials of the ruling party consistently blame the violence on "blokaderi" (blockaders) - the label the authorities apply to demonstrators - that is, on citizens of an opposition disposition. The claim of a "violent seizure of power" and of a "colour revolution" is advanced almost daily (around 10,000 mentions of a colour revolution on the most-visited news portals in 2025, and around 1,900 in 2026). Several dozen people Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights - YUCOM (16 July 2025) „Optužba za nasilno rušenje ustavnog poretka u službi obračuna s političkim protivnicima?", https://link.crta.rs/w8 have been charged with criminal offences against the constitutional order, largely on the basis of intercepted meetings, intercepted messages or statements made in the media. Representatives of the authorities consistently accuse Euronews Srbija (7 January 2026) „Vučić: Nemamo suštinsku opoziciju, sve kontrolišu strani centri moći", https://link.crta.rs/xp "foreign powers and intelligence services" of supporting, financing or instigating a "colour revolution", Istinomer (5 November 2025) „Nisam proglasio pobedu nad 'obojenom revolucijom'", assessment of a statement by Aleksandar Vučić, https://link.crta.rs/ws with the implication that Western European countries and Croatia are meant. In this narrative of a "colour revolution", the Serbian authorities receive public backing from the Russian intelligence service Radio Slobodna Evropa (15 September 2025) „Ruska obaveštajna služba optužuje EU da stoji iza protesta i targetira medije u Srbiji", https://link.crta.rs/wa and from Russian officials. RT Balkan (30 June 2025) „Kremlj: Mogući tragovi obojene revolucije u Srbiji, imamo poverenja u Beograd", https://link.crta.rs/w9
The equating of the state with the ruling party
Separation between the state and the party has long been one of ODIHR's priority recommendations.
Priority recommendation no. 1, 2024 local elections: "In line with OSCE commitments, measures should be taken to ensure the separation between the state and the party, as well as the impartiality [...]"
Criticism directed at President Vučić or at the Serbian Progressive Party is frequently construed as an attack on the state. Vučić often repeats that a change of government would bring down the state itself.
Officials of the ruling party have maintained from the outset that the student and citizens' protests endanger the security and constitutional order of Serbia. Alongside condemnation of the demonstrators and of those allegedly supporting them from abroad, there has also been frequent criticism of those parts of the institutions that did not act with the same intensity - above all in the police, the public prosecution and the judiciary.
The replacement of almost the entire leadership of the Serbian police in late 2025 and early 2026 followed a televised address by President Vučić in which he explained that only two police units had been prepared to "preserve public order and peace" at the protest of 15 March in Belgrade. Members of those two units - units that have themselves frequently been accused publicly of excessive use of force - went on to take key posts CRTA Plus (12 February 2026) „Smene i imenovanja u vrhu MUP-a", https://link.crta.rs/wt in the Criminal Police Directorate and in other police units.
After the Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime opened proceedings concerning the General Staff building in central Belgrade, in which one of the accused is Minister Nikola Selaković, SNS proposed amendments to the judicial laws that seriously curtail the independence of the courts and the autonomy of the public prosecution. The MP who introduced the legislation, Uglješa Mrdić of SNS - hence the name "Mrdić laws" - set out the reasons for it on K1 television in the following words: Nova.rs (3 February 2026) „'Hteli su da uhapse ministre i Vučića': Mrdić potvrdio da je novim setom zakona sprečeno hapšenje funkcionera SNS", https://link.crta.rs/wu "Because they started arresting ministers from SNS. Because in the end they wanted to arrest President Vučić, let us be open about it. Because they would have started arresting people. They wanted to carry the colour revolution through to the end, to bring down the state."
Following protests by professional associations and by the public, but above all in the face of an exceptionally sharp reaction from the European Commission and from European officials, in June 2026 further amendments to the judicial laws were adopted, which in practice withdrew the "Mrdić laws".
Officials of the ruling party have maintained from the outset that the student and citizens' protests endanger the security and constitutional order of Serbia. Alongside condemnation of the demonstrators and of those allegedly supporting them from abroad, there has also been frequent criticism of those parts of the institutions that did not act with the same intensity - above all in the police, the public prosecution and the judiciary.
The replacement of almost the entire leadership of the Serbian police in late 2025 and early 2026 followed a televised address by President Vučić in which he explained that only two police units had been prepared to "preserve public order and peace" at the protest of 15 March in Belgrade. Members of those two units - units that have themselves frequently been accused publicly of excessive use of force - went on to take key posts CRTA Plus (12 February 2026) „Smene i imenovanja u vrhu MUP-a", https://link.crta.rs/wt in the Criminal Police Directorate and in other police units.
After the Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime opened proceedings concerning the General Staff building in central Belgrade, in which one of the accused is Minister Nikola Selaković, SNS proposed amendments to the judicial laws that seriously curtail the independence of the courts and the autonomy of the public prosecution. The MP who introduced the legislation, Uglješa Mrdić of SNS - hence the name "Mrdić laws" - set out the reasons for it on K1 television in the following words: Nova.rs (3 February 2026) „'Hteli su da uhapse ministre i Vučića': Mrdić potvrdio da je novim setom zakona sprečeno hapšenje funkcionera SNS", https://link.crta.rs/wu "Because they started arresting ministers from SNS. Because in the end they wanted to arrest President Vučić, let us be open about it. Because they would have started arresting people. They wanted to carry the colour revolution through to the end, to bring down the state."
Following protests by professional associations and by the public, but above all in the face of an exceptionally sharp reaction from the European Commission and from European officials, in June 2026 further amendments to the judicial laws were adopted, which in practice withdrew the "Mrdić laws".
Foreign policy and European integration
The European Union's enlargement process acquired entirely new energy and momentum in 2026, and Serbia was not left out of it. Over the course of the year, Serbian authorities made efforts to complete certain steps and to meet the conditions for unblocking the accession negotiations of Serbia and unfreezing funds from the Growth Plan. A new operational team for EU accession was formed, headed by the head of the mission of Serbia to the EU, Danijel Apostolović, who was subsequently also appointed chief negotiator. Laws that under the Reform Agenda's timetable should have been adopted as early as 2024 were adopted; the process of electing the REM Council was unfrozen; and the Commission for the audit of the voter register was established. On that basis the Serbian authorities expected Cluster 3 to be opened in early summer. Strong support for unfreezing the integration process came from the European Commission and from several influential member states, but consensus among the member states was not reached - above all because of the close relationship between Serbia and Russia, and because of concerns about the state of the rule of law. Civil society organisations assessed that the reforms undertaken were not sufficient to conclude that Serbia had made measurable progress towards democratic standards, pointing out that the amended electoral laws do not guarantee any improvement in electoral conditions, that the Commission for the audit of the voter register does not have access to the data that would allow it to carry out its mandate, and that the REM Council has not been elected in full composition and that the conditions for it to perform its statutory functions have not been created.
Serbia has remained declaratively committed to the EU integration process beyond July as well - legislative and diplomatic activity continued through the summer, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, visited Belgrade. The failure to align the foreign policy of Serbia with that of the European Union is one of the key outstanding steps and one of the criticisms voiced by individual member states; with this visit the Serbian authorities signalled that not imposing sanctions and continuing cooperation with Russia do not preclude bilateral cooperation with Ukraine. The visit was not an occasion to condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine; the principal messages for the domestic public were the European path of the two countries, economic cooperation, and confirmation that Ukraine does not recognise the independence of Kosovo.
In February, President Vučić and the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, addressed a joint letter to the European public in which they proposed a radical change to the European integration process: instead of aspiring to full membership, their proposal seeks access to the single market and to Schengen without a right of veto in decision-making bodies. Some elements of this proposal are also contained in other proposals for reforming the accession process put forward during the year by EU member states and other actors. EUCRTA, „Proširenje EU treba ubrzati, ali ne po cenu demokratije i vladavine prava" (26 August 2026), https://link.crta.rs/wz
Serbia has remained declaratively committed to the EU integration process beyond July as well - legislative and diplomatic activity continued through the summer, and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, visited Belgrade. The failure to align the foreign policy of Serbia with that of the European Union is one of the key outstanding steps and one of the criticisms voiced by individual member states; with this visit the Serbian authorities signalled that not imposing sanctions and continuing cooperation with Russia do not preclude bilateral cooperation with Ukraine. The visit was not an occasion to condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine; the principal messages for the domestic public were the European path of the two countries, economic cooperation, and confirmation that Ukraine does not recognise the independence of Kosovo.
In February, President Vučić and the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, addressed a joint letter to the European public in which they proposed a radical change to the European integration process: instead of aspiring to full membership, their proposal seeks access to the single market and to Schengen without a right of veto in decision-making bodies. Some elements of this proposal are also contained in other proposals for reforming the accession process put forward during the year by EU member states and other actors. EUCRTA, „Proširenje EU treba ubrzati, ali ne po cenu demokratije i vladavine prava" (26 August 2026), https://link.crta.rs/wz
The positioning of political actors ahead of the elections
President Vučić has announced on several occasions that he will resign
021.rs (10 July 2026) „Vučić: Podneću ostavku nakon raspisivanja izbora, želim da u kampanji učestvujem kao običan građanin", https://link.crta.rs/wv
from the office of President in order to enter the campaign as a candidate for Prime Minister. Following a party rally in June 2026, the Serbian Progressive Party announced that it would contest the elections under the slogan "United Serbia", without specifying who would make up the coalition. Some of SNS's coalition partners have announced that they will run separately - among them the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Social Democratic Party of Serbia (SDPS),
SPS (1 September 2026) „SPS i SDP Srbije potpisali Memorandum o saradnji", https://link.crta.rs/ww
and Bogoljub Karić's Strength of Serbia Movement - though none of them explained running separately by reference to any disagreement with SNS policy, nor did they rule out a coalition with SNS after the elections. Aleksandar Vulin's Movement of Socialists implied that it would not contest the elections in coalition with SNS, saying that it did not wish to burden any partner with its stance towards the EU, and that it did not want the EU to remove it from the list.
Danas (20 July 2026) „Vulin: Pokret socijalista izlazi na izbore na listi gde EU neće moći ni da nas postavi, ni skloni", https://link.crta.rs/wx
In July, and particularly in August, President Vučić, ministers and public officials from SNS recorded a large number of field activities, touring towns and villages across Serbia.
The parties that made up the opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence at the previous elections will contest the coming elections in different formations: some, such as the Democratic Party and the Green-Left Front, have decided to support the Student List; Ahead of the anticipated dissolution of the Assembly, on 27 August the Democratic Party renamed its parliamentary group „Poslanici uz studente: za kontrolu izbora" (MPs with the students: for oversight of the elections). the Party of Freedom and Justice, Serbia Centre, the Movement of Free Citizens and the Solidarity movement have joined together in the Platform for a European Serbia, though they have not definitively confirmed that they will contest the elections in that form. The People's Movement of Serbia, New Face of Serbia and the Ecological Uprising have formed the alliance Narodni pokret Srbije (28 August 2026) „NPS, NLS i Ekološki ustanak formirali savez 'Narodna Srbija'", https://link.crta.rs/wy , "People's Serbia". Novi DSS and the Monarchists have announced that they will run in their traditional coalition, while other political parties and local movements are still positioning themselves.
The Student Movement announced its participation in the elections as early as 2025. The process of selecting parliamentary candidates was closed to the public; only the basic conditions that candidates for the Student List must meet were made known - that they are not students; that they are neither members of the ruling parties nor officials of opposition parties; that they have not held office in the executive or the legislature; and that they accept the programme objectives established by the Student Movement. The list of candidates was announced to be published only once the elections have been called.
The parties that made up the opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence at the previous elections will contest the coming elections in different formations: some, such as the Democratic Party and the Green-Left Front, have decided to support the Student List; Ahead of the anticipated dissolution of the Assembly, on 27 August the Democratic Party renamed its parliamentary group „Poslanici uz studente: za kontrolu izbora" (MPs with the students: for oversight of the elections). the Party of Freedom and Justice, Serbia Centre, the Movement of Free Citizens and the Solidarity movement have joined together in the Platform for a European Serbia, though they have not definitively confirmed that they will contest the elections in that form. The People's Movement of Serbia, New Face of Serbia and the Ecological Uprising have formed the alliance Narodni pokret Srbije (28 August 2026) „NPS, NLS i Ekološki ustanak formirali savez 'Narodna Srbija'", https://link.crta.rs/wy , "People's Serbia". Novi DSS and the Monarchists have announced that they will run in their traditional coalition, while other political parties and local movements are still positioning themselves.
The Student Movement announced its participation in the elections as early as 2025. The process of selecting parliamentary candidates was closed to the public; only the basic conditions that candidates for the Student List must meet were made known - that they are not students; that they are neither members of the ruling parties nor officials of opposition parties; that they have not held office in the executive or the legislature; and that they accept the programme objectives established by the Student Movement. The list of candidates was announced to be published only once the elections have been called.
