Serbian President: Aleksandar Vucic's long road to power

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

After constitutional changes adopted in 2006, Serbia became a republic with a presidential-parliamentary form of government. In other words, the power of the President of Serbia is limited by a strong parliament, but at the same time he is not a formal head of state, but plays an important role in governance, being responsible for the country's foreign policy. The current Serbian leader is a politician with a rich biography who served as a minister under Slobodan Milosevic.

Promising student

Aleksandr Vucic was born in Belgrade in 1970. Even as a child, he showed great promise, was an excellent student, won Olympiads in law and history, became the champion of Belgrade in chess. After graduating from school, the future president of Serbia entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade, from which he graduated with honors. As one of the best students in his course, Alexander was a scholarship holder of the Young Scientists Foundation.

During the war in Yugoslavia, an excellent student worked on channel "C" in the Republika Srpska, where he prepared and hosted news blocks in English. He learned the language in England while studying in Brighton. As a journalist, he interviewed Radovan Karadzic, later convicted by the Hague Tribunal, and was acquainted with Ratko Mladic, who also did not escape this fate. At the same time, Alexander avoided participating in hostilities, strictly observing journalistic ethics.

Politician

At the same time, a Belgrade University graduate entered politics. His career was just amazing. In 1993, he became a member of the Serbian Radical Party, and soon ran successfully for the Serbian parliament. A couple of years later, he led his movement, becoming one of the most promising politicians in the country.

In 1998 Aleksandar Vučić received the portfolio of Minister of Information in the government of Yugoslavia. The young minister had a hard time in his post, as a year later the country was attacked by NATO. As minister of information, he signed laws imposing heavy fines on journalists and shut down newspapers and radio stations during bombings.

In 1999, a peace agreement was signed between Yugoslavia and NATO, after which all the ministers from among the Radical Party resigned. Aleksandar Vucic was among them.

This was not the end of the political career of a native of Belgrade, he continued to be successfully elected to the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia, continued to work actively in the Radical Party.

Battle forpower

In 2008, due to a conflict between the leaders of the Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic and Vojislav Seselj, a split occurred in the ranks of the movement. Aleksandar Vucic left after Tomislav Nikolic, who announced the construction of the Serbian Progressive Party.

In 2012, Nikolic won the election, becoming President of Serbia. Having headed the country, he decided to make way for the young and resigned as chairman of the Serbian Progressive Party. His place was taken by Vucic, who was unanimously elected leader of the party.

In addition, he received a number of key positions in the supreme body of power in Serbia. Alexander became Deputy Prime Minister responsible for defense, state security and the fight against corruption.

In parallel, he received the portfolio of the Minister of Defense, although he later abandoned it, focusing on the fight against corruption.

In 2014, Alexander became the Prime Minister of Serbia after the Progressive Party formed a ruling coalition allied with the Socialists. In this post, he was noted for a number of high-profile statements on the Kosovo problem, which were ambiguously received by the Serbs.

Head of State

In 2017, the presidential elections in Serbia were held, in which the leader of the Progressive Party took part. Vucic won and led the country for the next five years. Having taken office, he continued the course towards normalizing relations with Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognize. A number of informal meetings were held with the leader of the partially recognized republic, Hashim Thaci, whoannounced the possibility of reconciliation between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians.

However, a serious obstacle to the continuation of the negotiation process was the assassination of a politician of Serbian origin in Kosovo. Vučić said reconciliation was out of the question until the killer was found and convicted.

In foreign policy, Vučić's priority is accession to the European Union. At the same time, given the craving of the Serbian people for Russia, he always emphasizes that Serbia will continue to develop friendly relations with Russia, China, and will never join NATO.