This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . The next check for changes will be

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/28/serbia-prime-minister-milos-vucevic-resigns-amid-anti-corruption-protests

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Serbian prime minister resigns amid anti-corruption protests Serbian prime minister resigns amid anti-corruption protests
(about 3 hours later)
Miloš Vučević steps down ‘in order to defuse tensions’ as demonstrations continue Miloš Vučević steps down ‘in order to defuse tensions’ as demonstrations continue after deadly station roof collapse
Miloš Vučević, the prime minister of Serbia, has resigned, becoming the highest-ranking official to step down amid a wave of anti-corruption protests that have spread across the country. Serbia’s prime minister has resigned after weeks of anti-corruption protests prompted by the deadly collapse of a train station roof in the northern city of Novi Sad last year.
The anti-government demonstrations sprang up after the roof collapsed at a railway station in the city of Novi Sad, killing 15 people and leading to calls for Vučević to quit. Miloš Vučević announced his resignation at a press conference on Tuesday, a decision he said he had made “in order to defuse tensions”. He said the mayor of Novi Sad would also be resigning. “With this we fulfil the political demands of even the most extreme protesters,” Vučević said.
What began as small gatherings in Novi Sad have ballooned and spread to Belgrade as students, teachers and other workers have turned out in the capital in their thousands to blame the station disaster on corruption within the government of the president, Aleksandar Vučić. Vučević, in his current post for less than a year, was mayor of Novi Sad for a decade until 2022, during which period a Chinese consortium began renovations on the main train station in Serbia’s second city.
The minister for construction, transportation and infrastructure, and the trade minister have already stepped down because of the incident, but that failed to quell the protests. Nationwide protests began after 15 people were killed when part of the canopy roof came crashing down on 1 November, a disaster blamed on rampant corruption.
“I opted for this step in order to defuse tensions”, Vučević told a news conference on Tuesday, announcing his resignation. He said the mayor of Novi Sad would also resign. “With this, we have met all demands of the most radical protesters.” On Monday Serbian students, supported by farmers, staged a 24-hour blockade of a major intersection in Belgrade. That followed calls for a general strike last Friday, when many people stopped work and schools and small businesses closed. An estimated 100,000 people attended a demonstration in Belgrade last month, while smaller protests took place in other cities.
The protests, which included students putting up a blockade at a main junction in Belgrade this week, have been largely peaceful. The resignation of Vučević is seen as an attempt by Serbia’s powerful populist president, Aleksandar Vučić, to stay in power. Vučić, a pro-Russian nationalist who has dominated Serbian politics for a decade, called for a government reshuffle on Monday night.
But three protesters in Novi Sad were attacked on Monday and blamed members of Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party (SNS). A young woman sustained head injuries and was treated in hospital. Michael Roth, the Social Democrat chair of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, tweeted: “Vučić sacrifices Vučević in order to stay in power himself.”
Vučević said an investigation was under way. He blamed foreign interference for stoking the protests, without providing evidence. Marta Szpala, a senior fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, said: “[Vučić’s] gamble seems to be that this resignation will satisfy the protesters and help him bring the protests under control.”
The focus for many analysts is how much this will affect the president, whose party easily won a snap election in 2023 but who has come under increasing pressure. Opposition parties and rights watchdogs accuse him and the SNS of bribing voters, stifling media freedom, violence against opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime. Vučić and his allies deny these allegations. The analyst added that an alternative was a snap election, in which Vučić, she said, would seek to regain control of the narrative and take advantage of the decentralised nature of the protests. “He would hope to capitalise on the fact that there is no strong, united political structure in place to challenge his rule, as the opposition was expecting the next vote to be in 2027.”
Mario Bikarski, senior Europe analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, did not expect Vučić to be forced out, in part because of a lack of trusted and viable political alternatives. But he expected the protests to continue. Vučic’s Serbian Progressive party won a comfortable victory in parliamentary elections in December 2023, but government critics said the vote was fraudulent, while international observers found “instances of serious irregularities, including vote-buying and ballot-box stuffing.
He said: “The government’s hesitation to accede to the protesters’ demands has eroded trust in state institutions and the political leadership. Serbia will likely remain a hotbed for unrest.” Vučić addressed the nation on Monday evening, defending his government’s response to the Novi Sad disaster and promising a dialogue with protesters. He is expected to make another public address later on Tuesday.
Vučić is also seen as a strategic player on the international stage in view of Serbia’s historic ties with Russia and the west. Serbia is a candidate to join the European Union, although it must normalise relations with its neighbour and former province Kosovo. The European Commission said it encouraged “all political actors to return to dialogue and refrain from escalating tensions”. A commission spokesperson said the EU was “concerned about incidents against demonstrators”, after it emerged that a female student had been hospitalised in clashes between supporters of the government and the opposition on Monday night.
The opposition Kreni-Promeni party has called for an interim government made up of experts sanctioned by students who have led the protests. It has urged other opposition parties not to boycott elections if they are held. Serbia has been an EU candidate country since 2011, but the latest progress report from the commission concluded that “corruption is prevalent in many areas and remains an issue of concern”.
Vučić is expected to address Serbia at 8pm local time (1900 GMT) on Tuesday. More than a dozen people have been charged in connection with the Novi Sad disaster, including the former transport minister, Goran Vesić, who resigned days after it occurred.
The concrete, steel and glass canopy collapsed just months after the renovation was completed in July 2024, after the station was inaugurated in 2022 by Vučic, who told the BBC it was “our way to modern Europe”.
The government had sought to meet some of the students’ demands by declassifying some documents about the canopy collapse, most recently on Sunday, but that has so far failed to defuse the protests.