Serbia is holding early parliamentary elections on 25 October. The date comes after almost a year of protests, blockades and an institutional crisis that began with the collapsed canopy in Novi Sad and has not let up since.

According to Serbian media sources, parliament is to be dissolved in the coming days on a formal proposal from the government - the legal precondition for calling new elections. By law the campaign lasts between 45 and 60 days. The arithmetic lands on Sunday, 25 October.

Aleksandar Vučić has meanwhile postponed his party's rally in Novi Sad, with a justification worth quoting: "I will not risk anyone's life for the sake of political promotion or a show of political strength by bringing 50,000 or 100,000 people to a rally." He also referred to the 2024 tragedy: "Almost two years ago a terrible tragedy happened in Novi Sad. The canopy collapsed, 16 people died, among them children."

Elections as an answer to the street

This is the model that repeats across the region: mass, sustained pressure from the street that institutions cannot calm with statements, so a ballot box is opened instead. Elections are a legitimate answer - but they are also the fastest way to convert a crisis of accountability into a crisis of seats, where the question "who answers for 16 dead" is replaced by "who will form a government".

For Macedonia this is not distant news. Serbia is among the country's five largest trading partners, and an election campaign in Belgrade almost always shifts the tone of Serbian politics towards its neighbours - Skopje, Pristina and Sarajevo included. Every campaign there is fought partly on regional themes, because they deliver votes more cheaply than economic ones.

What no date resolves is also still open: what happens to the investigations that produced the crisis. The 25 October vote will produce a new parliament. Whether it will also produce an answer to the question that put people on the street is something no election result guarantees on its own.