Elections

Disappointment on election night, after the preliminary results based on vote samples, was enormous. The pro-European opposition, gathered around the coalition Srbija protiv nasilja (Serbia Against Violence), promised more than it could deliver in terms of defending the integrity of the vote, every vote, as opposition representatives would say, so that its result, which is fairly good under completely irregular electoral conditions, was negligible to the majority of its voters.

The dirty campaign and heightened pressure are indirect evidence that the Serbian Progressive Party’s (SNS) ratings are in decline, which makes a change of government in Belgrade seem possible. The coalition Serbia Against Violence has presented the Progressives with a serious competitor for the first time, so the brunt of the campaign was borne by Aleksandar Vučić himself - even though he is not up for election.  

The new movement “Europe Now!” (PES) has garnered the most votes in the snap parliamentary elections in Montenegro,  with around 25.6 percent. Voter turnout was less than 57 percent. Difficult coalition negotiations are expected.

On April 28, Montenegro got a new, minority Government. Prime Minister Dritan Abazović’s cabinet, however, is one of the largest in the country’s recent, three-decades long history of multi-party democracy.

With everything that awaits us in the coming years, we must find a spark of optimism in the success achieved by the “Moramo” coalition and in the fact that self-organization and political action of individuals in Serbia is still possible. We can either join in and support that fight in the new cycle of the poisonous rule of Aleksandar Vučić, or keep being hostages to his politics.