Local elections with national stakes
10 June 2025
After over six months of protesting, holding the largest demonstration the country has ever seen, running to Brussels, biking to Strasbourg, and grieving the victims of the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse, Serbia finally had its first real shot at institutional change – at the ballot box.
Last Sunday, just under 60,000 voters in Kosjerić and Zaječar cast their votes in local elections. While these elections normally don't draw much attention, this time we were all glued to our screens, eyes peeled to the polls, not a soul breathing.
In one corner, we have the student movement, rallying behind opposition candidates with the support of civil society and much of the public. In the other, the ruling SNS party, up to their usual tricks – voter intimidation, media manipulation, and a tight grip (choke) on local institutions.
So, what happened? Waking up on Sunday morning, fresh cup of coffee in hand and eyes glued to the elections live blog, I had my opening line for this piece already drafted: "Ding, dong, the witch is (as good as) dead. The opposition won, president Aleksandar Vučić is one foot out the door, it's all uphill from here."
But as always with Serbia, the reality was far more complex, frustrating, and full of asterisks. Vučić's SNS won in both towns. But – in Kosjerić only by 50 (!) votes, shrinking the gap between the ruling party and the opposition to just 0.7%.
Yes, they won, but grave voting irregularities were reported in at least 85% of polling stations in Zaječar. Yes, they won, but SNS activists were practically caught red-handed buying votes. From start to finish, the whole thing reeked of fraud, and despite earnest efforts on citizens' part, it looked hard to intercept. Will any of this lead to annulled results? Likely not.
 | Nevena Vračar Are these results still technically a win for the opposition? In a sense, yes, but also no. These elections tell two stories: one on how to successfully decentralize a movement to smaller towns and (almost) squash ruling party dominance, aligning all corners of the country with Belgrade's unrest. Yet another, much sadder story is that of leaving a nation to wonder whether they should have scaled up political action sooner, formed a new opposition, and pushed for national elections before elections found them – six months in, disheveled, dazed, and out of breath. But luckily, nothing's over yet. |
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