Vučić Is Getting Used to Opposition, While the Winners Argue Over Who Picks the Ministers of Serbia's New Government

Almost two weeks after the snap parliamentary elections of October 25, Serbia has a winner, a new opposition leader - and still no government. The winning Student List is putting together a cabinet, and claims are coming out of Belgrade that the first dispute isn't with the losers but inside its own camp.

According to an unnamed source, the Student Movement and the Student List disagree over who should nominate the ministers. The movement's plenum objected to the list's candidates picking future ministers on their own. On the other side is the argument that the list doesn't draw its legitimacy from the movement, so the movement has no exclusive right to form the government. For now these claims come from a single anonymous source and from media friendly to the defeated government - which doesn't make them untrue, but does mean they should be read with caution.

The plan, at least on paper, is ready. Dejan Šoškić is mentioned as prime minister, and the government would have a prime minister, three deputy prime ministers and 20 ministries - from finance and justice, through European integration, to a separate ministry for Kosovo and Metohija. Ministers without portfolio would be abolished. A serious state machine for a movement that grew out of student blockades.

Šoškić is already under fire. Claims have surfaced, without firm confirmation, that he travelled to Brussels and met European officials led by EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, without some of his own people knowing. If true, it's a classic Balkan scene: before you put together a government at home, you first go and see what Brussels thinks.

Meanwhile, Aleksandar Vučić is getting used to his new role. As opposition leader, he announced in a social media address that he will lead the parliamentary group "Serbia Against Terror" in the new parliament. He blamed the new government - which hasn't even been formed yet - for investors leaving, citing the Teklas factory in Vladičin Han, which, he says, has cut its third shift and will cut 700 jobs. He also claimed Expo 2027 won't be finished. Between the two political messages, he posted an emotional video with the puppies he had adopted: "I'm very sad they're leaving," he said, because new owners had been found for them.

A strange picture. The man who ran Serbia for more than a decade is now criticising a government that doesn't exist yet, while the winners argue over who gets to hand out the ministerial chairs. Will Belgrade get new politics or just new faces in the old seats? And how quickly will the region start to feel the difference?