Serbia's cabinet asks Vucic to dissolve parliament for an October vote

Serbia's government on 7 September asked President Aleksandar Vucic to dissolve the National Assembly and call a snap parliamentary election. Prime Minister Djuro Macut read the request on television. Under the constitution Vucic has 72 hours to decide. He has already said the vote should fall on 18 or 25 October. A campaign must last between 45 and 60 days.

Regular parliamentary elections were not due until December 2027. The early calendar follows nearly two years of street protests that began after a railway-station canopy in Novi Sad killed 16 people in 2024. Students and opposition groups have demanded a vote and an accounting for the collapse. Vucic said in June that he would resign the presidency within weeks and help his Serbian Progressive Party win both a presidential and a parliamentary contest. The party on Saturday named its list United Serbia and put Vucic at the top as its candidate for prime minister.

If he is appointed premier he has said he will leave the presidency. In that case Ana Brnabic, the speaker and a former prime minister, would become acting president. The manoeuvre would move Vucic from a head-of-state role with a term limit into the job that actually runs the ministries.

Macut said parts of the public had been calling for an early election and that a responsible government does not ignore that demand. Opposition figures read the same request as an attempt to reset the clock before the protest movement can organise a joint list. Savo Manojlovic of the student-linked Move-Change group has argued that Vucic is trying to jump before he is pushed.

The cabinet meeting came hours after a funeral in Belgrade for Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander convicted of genocide in The Hague. Thousands attended, including ministers. The European Union had warned against honours for a convicted war criminal. The sequence, funeral then dissolution request, puts two tests of Serbia's direction on the same day: how the state treats the 1990s, and how it treats an election the streets have been demanding.

Vucic can still refuse to dissolve. The more likely path is an October date and a campaign fought on the Novi Sad dead, on control of the state, and on whether the man who has led Serbia since 2012 can convert a presidential brand into a prime minister's majority. The 72-hour clock started on Monday afternoon.