Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has promised an early parliamentary election to diffuse large protests against his populist rule in the wake of two mass shootings. The opposition parties have rejected holding an election while Vucic maintains a firm grip on all levers of power. “It is now clear that we will have early parliamentary elections,” he conceded.
Tens of thousands of people have rallied in Belgrade, even as Vucic rejected any responsibility for the crisis and ignored the protesters’ demands to step down. A new protest is planned for this weekend in what is becoming an increasingly serious challenge to Vucic. The U.S. envoy for the Balkans has urged Kosovo and Serbia to deescalate ethnic tensions in the former Serbian province, or both states could jeopardise their goal of joining the European Union.
Impasse comes as tensions flare in Kosovo – Serbia’s former province, whose independence Belgrade does not recognise. Police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, and installed ethnic Albanian mayors after the Serbs boycotted an election. International mediators are now proposing new local elections in the area with the „unconditional” participation of the Serbs.
