Vucic: Elections Will Be Held in the Next Year and a Half, When the Competent Institutions Decide

Photo: PrintScreen Instagram/buducnostsrbijeav

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on May 16 that elections would be held "within the next year and a half" or when "the competent institutions decide."

Vucic said that he had not received any request from any "competent" institution to call early parliamentary elections so far, "either in writing or verbally." "I am always willing to consider every request. Elections will be held within the next year and a half when the competent institutions make a decision to that end, not unauthorized organizations that do not have the prerogatives," Vucic said in Tirana, where he attended the European Political Community (EPC) summit.

Prior to this, protesting students who have been blocking their universities since early December, said their protests would be radicalized if early elections were not called by mid-May. "As for radicalization, let them do as they wish. The fewer of them there are, the more nervous they will get. It was precisely on Dec. 11 that I said they would not accept the fulfillment of their demands, that these were merely tricks, and that behind it all was politics and a color revolution. We have realized that it was all about politics," the president said.

Vucic said the protests had been exposed "as the worst kind of politics" which, as he said, had entered universities in Serbia. "There must be no politics at universities, everything they are doing is against the law," Vucic added.