Following mass protests demanding restoration of the rule of law, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced on 27 June that he would resign within weeks and call early presidential and parliamentary elections.
However, many in civil society are suspicious, with no date yet set for elections and the potential for Vučić to retain power by becoming prime minister.
"The ruling Serbian Progressive Party has moved to dismantle the conditions for fair competition," says Civicus Lens, a rights organization, on its website.
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Serbia’s path to European Union (EU) membership has stalled as its government deepens ties with China and Russia, the group says.
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Vučić has deliberately dragged his feet because he wants to ensure that when they happen, his party cannot lose. Meanwhile, the government has systematically worsened conditions for elections. Independent media are being suffocated.
University professors who supported student protests are being fired. Justice officials who show independence are being replaced by more obedient ones. Hate campaigns against civil society, journalists, opposition parties and students are intensifying. The plan has been transparent: call elections only once the environment is so controlled that they cannot bring real change.
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"Police raided our office and remained on-site for 28 hours, copying almost 10,000 pages of financial documents. This was turned into a spectacle for state-controlled media, which branded us a ‘criminal gang of foreign mercenaries money-laundering millions of dollars’", Civicus says.
Three other civil society organisations in Belgrade were raided on the same day.
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Yet the assault continues through narrative and threat. Senior ruling party officials and pro-government media regularly label Civicus and other rights groups as behind-the-scenes organisers of a ‘colour revolution against Serbia’.
"We live in constant uncertainty, never knowing if another raid or something worse is coming."
The strategy is clear: to exhaust civil society financially and psychologically and make donors and partners fear any association with us. It’s institutional intimidation dressed in the language of law enforcement.
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Anybody with first-hand experience of what is happening?