Serb President Vucic to Step Down as Party Chief After Elections

(Bloomberg) -- Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic will overhaul his ruling party in June after general elections in spring, pledging thorough personnel changes including stepping down himself as its chief.

Vucic, whose term as the head of state expires in 2022, spoke a day after unveiling an ambitious development plan through 2025 to boost economic expansion to try to catch up with the European Union that his country aspires to join. The parliamentary elections are expected in April or May, after which the ruling center-right Serbian Progressive Party will hold a convention on June 28, he told reporters in Belgrade.

“It’s my decision not to run” for the top party job, he said, calling for a younger generation of activists. He didn’t say who would succeed him.

The ruling party was founded in 2008 by Vucic and other defectors from the ultra-nationalist Serb Radical Party who sought to reinvent themselves as moderates with pro-EU views. It remains well ahead of other political groups with more than 50% popular support, according to polls. The rating appears unaffected by opposition accusations of deteriorating standards of democracy and rampant corruption, claims which Vucic and his party dismiss.

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, Neil Chatterjee, Andrew Reierson

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