„If we lose the elections, I will count the votes again myself. If they win, that same evening I will congratulate them and say that the worst possible people have come to power. I will laugh at them defiantly from detention, from prison and from the grave.”

That was Aleksandar Vučić, on state television, talking about possibly losing an election himself. It is not the statement of a man planning a peaceful handover of office. It is the statement of a man already thinking about detention - and who wants everyone to hear that he is not afraid of it.

The elections are coming, and soon

Vučić announced that parliamentary elections will most likely be held in October, with presidential elections possibly at the end of December 2026 or in January 2027. He claims he will not flee the country if the Serbian Progressive Party loses. He also claims his list will be considerably younger than the students' list.

The context matters more than the calendar. Serbia has been in protest for months, ever since the railway station canopy in Novi Sad collapsed in November 2024 and killed 16 people. Demonstrators have said the same thing ever since: that was not an accident, that was corruption cast in concrete. Out of that canopy grew a movement that now has its own electoral list.

And the government's response? State media systematically attack the candidates on the students' list. Not the programme - the people.

„Who the hell are you?”

On 10 July the government launched an anti-corruption portal named „Who the hell are you?”. In three weeks, by its own figures, 10,000 reports and responses to around 3,500 of them. So: the government being protested against over corruption opened a portal for reporting corruption, and named it like a line from a street argument.

Does anyone genuinely believe that 10,000 reports filed through a government portal will reach the people who signed off on that canopy?

The West as the culprit

In this interview too, Vučić pointed at the usual address. He claims Europe and the United States are „rewarding people in Serbia who would trample the legal order, kill people and arrest them unlawfully”. It is easily recognisable rhetoric - when domestic pressure rises, an external culprit is the cheapest defence on the market.

He also said he fears nothing „except God, the judgement of history and the judgement of his own people”. Three authorities, not one of them a court in Belgrade.

Why this matters on this side of the border too

Serbia is entering an election year with a president publicly raising the possibility of ending up in prison, with a movement grown out of sixteen dead people, and with state media turned into a party instrument. This is not an internal Serbian question - it is the largest political machine in the region moving towards a breaking point.

The Balkans know this scene by heart: a government claiming it will count the votes itself, an opposition emerging out of a tragedy, and a West that alternates between partner and advocate. The difference is that this time all of it was said on camera, with no need to read between the lines.

October is close. And a statement about detention and the grave, made months before an election, is usually not a joke - it is preparing the audience.