Brussels \u2013 Early general elections in Serbia are now official: voting will take place on 25 October, 46 days after the announcement made live on television at midday today by President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, who signed the decrees dissolving the National Assembly. The next expected steps are Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s own resignation from the presidency\u2014a necessary step for him to stand as a candidate\u2014and the calling of early presidential elections, likely before the end of the year. <\/p>\n
The vote comes after months in which the president had hinted at his intention to take up the challenge issued by the student movement and the parliamentary opposition<\/strong>, who had been calling for early elections for over a year. Having drawn large crowds at the funeral of Ratko Mladi\u0107, the \u201cexecutioner of Srebrenica\u201d and a war criminal sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Vu\u010di\u0107 will now take to the political arena himself at the helm of the United Serbia coalition, standing for the post of prime minister. <\/p>\n In his address to the nation, the president justified the decision by citing the need for a clear mandate: \u201cSerbia needs election results that can clearly define and demonstrate the will of its citizens<\/strong> regarding the direction and path the country intends to follow. I believed, and still believe, that Serbia has chosen a sound European path, while preserving its traditional friendships, national pride, and dignity.\u201d <\/p>\n There was no shortage of attacks on the student movement, which has been at the centre of the protests in recent months: \u201cIt is impossible to engage in dialogue with someone against whom a campaign of dehumanisation is being waged and who labels you as non-human. That is why we need election results that clearly demonstrate the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It has risen to the challenge posed by the student movement, which has been protesting against the president and the executive for months<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":496,"featured_media":434180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[28802,26071],"class_list":["post-464475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-elections-anticipated-en","tag-inserbia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/496"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464475"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464480,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464475\/revisions\/464480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}