ReutersSerbia’s president has resigned after more than a year of student-led protests and growing public discontent over allegations of government corruption.
Aleksandar Vučić said his administration had preserved peace and stability during his nine-year tenure as he addressed supporters outside the presidential building in the capital, Belgrade.
He had already announced his intention to resign in June and is currently standing to be his party’s candidate for prime minister in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Vučić cannot run for a third presidential term under Serbia’s constitution.
The pro-Russian populist’s administration has been dogged by anger over alleged corner-cutting.
Protests involving a wide range of citizens – from students and teachers to workers and farmers – followed.
Demonstrators believed that the disaster reflected more than a decade of governing by the Progressive Party of Vucic, who closely associated himself with the station’s renovation, which was supposed to be a symbol of Serbia’s progress.
A series of resignations of those under the embattled president failed to placate the protesters, who continued to demonstrate throughout this summer, turning to unrest following accusations of police brutality.
Vučić’s presidency was due to expire next year. Under Serbia’s constitution, presidential elections must be held no more than three months after his resignation.
This means Serbians will go to the polls twice before the end of the year.
Vučić said the presidential election will take place more than a month after the snap parliamentary election in late October, itself called in response to the protests, which had added calls for a vote to their list of demands.
He had earlier announced that he planned to run in that election as Progressive Party’s leader, leaving the possibility he could retain a position at the top of Serbian politics.
Parliamentary speaker Ana Brnabić, also a Progressive Party member, will assume the role of interim president until a new one is elected.
Vučić used his constitutional powers to pardon 49 people, including 23 students and party loyalists suspected of offences related to what he called the “terrible events we have gone through over the past year and a half”, according to Serbian public broadcaster RTS.
The upcoming parliamentary elections will pit Vučić’s Progressive Party against a student-led, anti-corruption movement called Students Win and a coalition of pro-Western opposition parties known as European Serbia.
Vucic has been a fixture of Serbian politics for more than a decade, becoming prime minister in 2014, before being elected to his first term as president in 2017.
He has publicly said he wants Serbia to join the EU while courting close ties with Russia and opening Serbia up to Chinese investment.
