Serbia must vote for a president by 27 December. Will a Vučić ally set the date?

What happened

Acting president Ana Brnabić must set an early presidential election, to take place no later than three months after Aleksandar Vučić resigned on 27 September, so by 27 December.

Serbia must hold a vote for a new president by 27 December. Aleksandar Vučić resigned as president on 27 September to run for prime minister in an early parliamentary election. Under Serbian law, an early vote for president must take place no later than three months after the post falls empty. Voters choose the president directly, but the job is largely ceremonial.

Vucic resigned on September 27, so the deadline to hold a vote is December 27.

Al Jazeera, Serbia after Vucic: Who will be PM and when will a government be formed?

Ana Brnabić is the one who must set the date. She was Speaker of the old parliament, she is a close ally of Vučić, and she is acting president now. Under the rules of the election commission (RIK), voting day comes 30 to 60 days after the election is announced. So a vote by 27 December must be announced by 27 November. Reports up to 26 October gave no date.

Vučić’s side lost the parliamentary election on 25 October. RIK gave the Student List, a movement that grew out of almost two years of protests, 52.54% of the vote. The list led by Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) got 39.29%. The Student List is expected to win about 140 of 250 seats, enough to govern alone. Vučić admitted defeat: “It is clear we have lost these elections“.

Brnabić may not keep the job for long. The new parliament must meet within 30 days of the official result, which means by early or mid December. Its new Speaker, most likely from the Student List, then becomes acting president until a president is elected. The Student List has not yet named its own candidate for president.

Sources: aljazeera.com

The Pattern

We looked for cases where a head of state chosen directly by voters left office early, or a term ended with no one elected, and the country had to hold a new vote. We count the vote as on time if the first round came within 90 days, about the three months Serbia has now. We found six such early votes since 1999, two of them in Serbia. In four, a leader of parliament stood in as head of state.

The Read

The date is in one person’s hands for now. In Algeria and Kazakhstan in 2019, the acting head set the vote 7 and 21 days after the post fell empty. Serbia is past day 30 with no date in the reports. Vučić admitted defeat before the first results and said he did “not want unrest“ on the streets. A new Speaker from the Student List could also set the date, but the new parliament may not meet until December, and any date set after 27 November is too late for 27 December.

There are reasons for doubt. In none of the six earlier votes did the winner of a parliamentary election have a majority alone, as the Student List does now. Each of the other four countries had its own law. In Algeria a vote set within 90 days was put off for lack of candidates, and in Serbia in 2003 three votes failed because too few people took part. In three of the four countries that elected a president within 90 days, the winner came from outside the old leader’s side. In Kazakhstan the acting president chosen by the leader who left won the vote.