Koautorski tekst objavljen u Washington Postu 04. aprila
On Sunday, Serbians chose a new president
— electing Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic with an estimated 54.9 percent
majority.
Why would Serbia’s prime
minister shift gears to seek the more ceremonial position of president of the
Republic of Serbia? The move reflects an ongoing effort to solidify the
position of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). It may also be a sign of Serbia’s
turn toward an “illiberal” democracy — a political system marked by free and
fair elections, but where rule of law,
separation of powers, media freedom and other types of
liberties are undermined.
In an article published before the 2016
Serbian parliamentary elections, the third in just four years, we
wrote that Prime Minister Vucic called for new elections in an attempt to
extend his mandate until 2020, but also boost the SNS performance in the
concurrent local elections. The SNS-led electoral coalition won 52.4 percent of
the seats last year and was able to form a majority
coalition government, eventually.
It took 109 days to form that
government, however, largely out of Vucic’s concerns that
the SNS would be defeated in the 2017 presidential elections. We predicted that
Vucic would put himself forward as the party’s presidential candidate — despite
his continuous
denials.
We were right — after several months mulling
it over, Vucic finally “accepted” his party’s offer to run for president in
Sunday’s election.
Here’s why Vucic ran
for president
So what would lead Vucic to leave the assured
— and more powerful — position of prime minister in a majority government,
barely a year after his last electoral victory, and run for president of the
Republic of Serbia? Here are four reasons:
1) The SNS could not afford
to lose the presidency
Approval ratings in
February for President Tomislav Nikolic were not very promising, and the SNS
had no other credible and recognizable candidate to run in his place — other
than Vucic. Despite the exceptionally good results obtained in last year’s
elections, the SNS feared losing the April presidential election. And this was
something Vucic could ill afford, as an SNS loss might strengthen what is a
currently a weak opposition, but also decrease Vucic’s profile within the
media, calling into question the strength and sustainability of his own
government.
2) Then the unexpected happened
— there was new competition
Initially the SNS did not have
much to worry about, given the opposition’s
failure to unite around a single candidate. Then two new
presidential candidates emerged: former ombudsman Sasa Jankovic, and the former
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vuk Jeremic. Once these two very popular figures
announced their intention to run for president, Vucic had no choice but to join
the race. These two candidates, together with Ljubisa
Preletacevic Beli, a satirist who decided to become a candidate
after the opposition failed to unite, claimed about 31 percent
of the vote, even with Vucic in the race.
3) Very little will change
for the SNS — or Vucic’s influence
Despite his new title, Vucic may
see little significant change in terms of his capacity to influence policy or
exert power. This is because Serbia’s
proportional (closed-list) electoral system gives the party
leadership enormous power to select who serves in parliament.
Thus, as the leader of the SNS, President
Vucic will control who will succeed him as prime minister, the composition of
the next Serbian government and the whole SNS-led parliamentary caucus. This
kind of an arrangement is not completely new to Serbian politics.
There’s a precedent, in fact — during Boris
Tadic’s second term as president, from 2008 to 2012, he led the Democratic
Party, Serbia’s largest party at the time. Tadic appointed Mirko Cvetkovic, a
nonpartisan politician, to formally lead the cabinet, but kept the real power
in his own hands.
We can expect a similar
leadership scenario now. Vucic will certainly not repeat his predecessor’s mistake —
when elected Serbia’s president in 2012, Nikolic decided to renounce his
position as leader of the SNS.
4) The temptation of
“illiberal democracy”
Most opinion polls
predicted Vucic to win in the first round — and he did. Given
the commanding victory, the only questions that remains are who will become the
new prime minister, and what will be the composition of the new government.
While Vucic will continue to guide
policymaking in Serbia, he will certainly select a prime minister who is
completely loyal to him, so he can continue to exert political power.
Unfortunately, this raises
questions about the legitimacy of the new government, given that it was Vucic
whom the Serbian voters “elected” as prime minister barely a year ago. There’s
a risk that Vucic’s move could also lead to the collapse (once more) of the country’s
institutional system.
Here’s the reason: Contrary to
the Serbian Constitution, the power to create and operate policies will be in
the hands of the president rather than the prime minister and his/her
government. This wouldn’t be unique in Europe. Other examples include Putin (and
Mevdevev) in Russia, or Kaczynski (and
Marcinkiewicz) in Poland.
Vucic ran a particularly
negative campaign, in a bid to discredit all the main opposition candidates. He
asked the speaker to suspend
parliament until after the elections, a move that angered the
opposition parties. These moves, together with his absolute
dominance over the media — which raise alarm bells in European
institutions — are clear markers that Serbia might end up
following the path of other illiberal European democracies.
Boban Stojanović is a
PhD candidate at the University of Belgrade. Fernando Casal Bértoa is an assistant
professor at the University of
Nottingham in Britain.
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