“A populist on the way to becoming a dictator”, the western media write about Vučić’s aim for another term

Aleksandar Vucic has dominated Serbian politics over the past decade, first as prime minister and later as president. Critics complain that he has consolidated power in his hands and undermined democratic norms.

Last month, he called early parliamentary and local elections for next Sunday, amid mass protests in the country and international calls for a solution to Serbia’s long-running conflict with Kosovo.

But a united opposition wants to achieve success and is targeting the leadership of Belgrade, where almost a third of the population lives.

Such a victory could irreversibly damage Vucic’s authority, reports the BBC.

For Zorana Mihajlovic, Vučić is “a populist on the way to becoming a dictator”.

Freedom House today lists the country he leads as “partly free”.

Influenced by Serbian ultra-nationalism and football hooliganism, Vučić joined the far-right Radical Party at the age of 23. Radicals called for a Greater Serbia by taking land from neighboring countries.

“You kill one Serb and we’ll kill 100 Muslims,” he proclaimed a few days after the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, when 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

In 1998, the Yugoslav ruler Slobodan Milosevic appointed Vučić as his Minister of Information. In government, Vucic was responsible for enforcing some of the most restrictive freedom of expression laws in Europe.

It was an era “characterized by ethnic cleansing, hatred of Croats and Muslims, sanctions and wars”, says Zorana Mihajlovic.

As for the consolidation of power, opponents say that Vucic has done this by eroding democratic institutions in a way that is reminiscent of the authoritarianism of the 1990s.

Mihajlovic believes that Serbia is “distancing itself from the EU and democracy”.

“The government has almost complete control over all levels of public institutions and the media,” says Florian Bieber, an expert on Serbian nationalism at the University of Graz.

Vucic’s supporters dispute this characterization and see his dominance in Serbian politics as the result of successful governance.

Vucic says he wants Serbia to join the EU, which accounts for more than half of Serbia’s trade. At the same time, however, he has defended friendly relations with Russia and opened up Serbia to Chinese investment.

In October, after a decade of increasingly close economic relations, he signed a free trade agreement with China.

Chinese companies have been selected to build roads and railroads in Serbia, making the Balkan country one of the focal points of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative in Europe. A Chinese company already operates a large copper and gold mine in eastern Serbia.

Shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Vucic said he would not oppose the Kremlin’s policy because “85% of Serbs will always be on Russia’s side, no matter what.”

It was an exaggeration, but he kept his word. Serbia has refused to support EU sanctions against Moscow, even though it has EU candidate status. Russia has consistently supported Serbia by voting against the international recognition of Kosovo.

Its government has even been accused of facilitating the re-export of sanctioned “dual-use” technology to Russia.

Zorana Mihajlovic says he is not instinctively pro-Russian, but merely pragmatic: “The more isolated Serbia is, the stronger its power.”

His biggest test in the December 17 election will be in Belgrade, after opposition parties capitalized on anger over two mass shootings last May in which 19 people were killed. One was at an elementary school in Belgrade./The Geopost/