Do we like Aleksandar Vučić?
Our score: 2 out of 10. His own acts on Pride, same-sex marriage and the Srebrenica resolution count as harm, and the real good we could verify is thin.
Vučić came up in the 1990s as an ultranationalist ally of Slobodan Milošević, serving as his information minister in 1998. AFP says he was also a vocal supporter of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, both later sentenced to life for genocide and other crimes. In 2008 he left the Radicals and co-founded the Progressive Party, which won in 2012, and he went from deputy PM and defence minister to PM, then president in 2017.
The last year has been a slow-motion collapse. Protests began after 16 people died when a station canopy fell in Novi Sad in 2024, and demonstrators blame corruption. He resigned eight months early on 27 September to run for PM, then said “it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won”. That was on a sample count, not final results.
Now the harm check. In 2022 he announced the cancellation of EuroPride in Belgrade, citing threats from right-wing extremists, and opposition parties and the UN office in Serbia criticised it. In 2023 he told TV Pink he wouldn't sign a law enabling same-sex marriage or recognising a third gender, saying “Let it be in your country, it won't happen in Serbia.” Belgrade Pride has marched anyway, and in 2025 it doubled as a protest against police violence.
On Srebrenica, he urged UN members in May 2024 to vote against the genocide remembrance resolution, saying “This is not about reconciliation nor about remembrance.” He also says he went to Srebrenica to bow his head before the Bosniak victims. Where you land depends on whether you read his stance as defending Serbia from collective blame or as brushing off a genocide the UN has now recognised.
Reuters reported this month that activists allege police beat them at 2025 protests, and an independent forensic report alleged a systematic pattern. Reporters Without Borders ranked Serbia 104th on press freedom, its lowest ever, and the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation counted at least 182 verbal attacks by Vučić on journalists and outlets in nine months. Vučić and his party deny accusations of repression, and he denies intimidating the media.
On the nice test, a Belgrade court fined him about €1,700 over insults to opposition leader Boško Obradović, according to Obradović's own party, Dveri. Freedom House rates Serbia “partly free” and says he has sought to suppress the opposition and concentrate power. Against that, he called the early election himself, stepped down and conceded when he lost, which not every long-serving leader manages.