ADVERTISEMENT

A Plan to Unseat Serbia’s Leader Crumbles as Elections Near

A Plan to Unseat Serbia’s Leader Crumbles as Elections Near

(Bloomberg) -- A plan forged by Serbia’s opposition parties to boycott this year’s elections is falling apart, providing a boost to the person it was designed to hurt.

The move had called into question the Balkan country’s democratic credentials as it ramps up efforts to join the European Union. Instead, the protest’s collapse is boosting President Aleksandar Vucic, who can bat away critics accusing him of autocratic behavior and look forward to a solid majority for his party.

The Alliance for Serbia, an umbrella opposition group that has led weekly anti-government protests, is sticking with its plan to field no candidates in the parliamentary ballot expected to take place in April.

But EU officials are at pains to uphold democratic standards in both candidate and member states and want all parties to participate, particularly after the government postponed the ballot and changed voting rules to benefit smaller parties.

“We’re calling for all political parties to participate in the elections and not to boycott it,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said last week during a visit to Belgrade. “Democracy only works if we all participate.”

A Plan to Unseat Serbia’s Leader Crumbles as Elections Near

The dispute has shined a spotlight on a region that’s already under close scrutiny in terms of how it observes the rule of law as the EU struggles with other ex-communist members that are testing the limits of its liberal and multi-cultural values.

The Alliance says its boycott as a warning signal against Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, which it accuses of stifling democratic debate and letting corruption run rampant.

Its argument is that there’s no point contesting a vote when the government drowns out dissenting voices with exclusively pro-government messages on state-run media and uses the advertising budgets of publicly owned companies to financially squeeze opposition-leaning news outlets.

Vucic, whose pledges of strong economic growth, higher salaries and infrastructure investment have propelled his Serbian Progressive Party higher in opinion polls, says the government has improved the media environment and that the opposition has a fair chance in elections.

The Progressives pushed through a law lowering the threshold needed for parties to win seats in parliament to 3%. That has weakened the resolve to boycott among opposition forces that aren’t in the Alliance, including the right-wing Radicals and liberal and conservative groups.

“I don’t see the potential to make the future government do anything after a boycott,” said Milos Jovanovic, the leader of the opposition conservative Democratic Party for Serbia. “I’m always for a fight, even if it’s not on equal footing.”

Not Ideal

The Progressive Party remains dominant. It has backing of 53.6% of Serbian voters -- up from 48.3% in the 2016 elections -- followed in a distant second by the Alliance with 10.3%, according to a Faktor Plus survey conducted last month. The president’s Socialist allies rank third with 9.5%.

The Alliance is still sticking to its boycott plan, although some members may contest municipal ballots to defend positions at local levels.

“A boycott is not an ideal solution,” said Aleksandar Ivanovic, a leader of the Social Democrats, which are part of the opposition cluster. “But it’s even worse to give legitimacy to Vucic’s regime.”

If the Alliance stays on the sidelines, the boycott may increase both the share won by bigger parties and help give Vucic’s party an even larger majority in parliament than the 131 of 250 seats it enjoys now.

“Those in power could garner as much as 70% of votes in case of a boycott,” Srdjan Bogosavljevic, senior consultant at the Ipsos pollster, said by phone. “It seems certain that the Progressives will win.”

--With assistance from Gordana Filipovic.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Irina Vilcu at isavu@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey, Andrea Dudik

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.