Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is facing renewed scrutiny after a woman in Nova Varoš publicly claimed that she was promised a job in exchange for collecting votes for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) ahead of the 2020 parliamentary elections.
The exchange, which took place during Vučić’s recent visit to the town, has attracted attention because the woman openly described what she said was an arrangement linking electoral support to employment.
She directed her question not only at Vučić but also at acting Srbijšume director Krsta Janjušević and Nova Varoš Mayor Branko Bjelić, who were standing behind the president.
“2020, I was promised that I would get a job. I was told that if I collected a certain number of votes, I would get a job,” she said, repeatedly asking why the promised employment had never materialized.
The incident prompted Serbia’s election-monitoring organization CRTA to warn that the statement could point to elements of a criminal offense involving the giving or receiving of benefits in connection with voting.
According to CRTA, the alleged offense would not necessarily depend on whether the woman ultimately received the promised job, as the promise itself could constitute an element of the offense. However, the organization also noted that the alleged conduct occurred six years ago and that criminal prosecution may already be time-barred.
A system built on promises
Lawyer Božo Prelević argued that the woman’s statement raises broader questions about the mechanisms allegedly used by the ruling party to maintain political support.
He said her account amounted to an open acknowledgment that electoral support was allegedly influenced through promises of jobs and other benefits.
“This is a test for the police and the prosecution,” Prelević said, arguing that authorities had been presented with a direct statement from someone who claimed to have participated in such an arrangement.
He also portrayed the incident as evidence of a wider problem within Serbia’s political system, accusing the authorities of allowing political influence, corruption and patronage to become intertwined.
Prelević further argued that the lack of a serious institutional response would raise questions about the independence of law-enforcement bodies.
Vučić’s promises are becoming a political liability
The Nova Varoš episode comes as Vučić continues to tour Serbia and announce new infrastructure projects, investments and employment initiatives.
For years, the president has built part of his political image around promises of higher living standards, new hospitals, schools, roads and economic development.
But political analyst Dejan Bursać, a senior researcher at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, argued that the ruling system is increasingly struggling to satisfy all of the interests it has cultivated.
After more than a decade in power, he said, many promises have accumulated without being fulfilled.
Vučić is now returning to communities he has visited repeatedly and making commitments similar to those made during previous campaigns, Bursać said.
The problem, he argued, is that the ruling system can no longer provide benefits to everyone who has been drawn into its clientelist networks.
For years, people could be kept politically loyal by the expectation of jobs, personal benefits or other forms of assistance. That dynamic, according to Bursać, appears to be weakening.
Growing frustration inside the ruling camp
The more significant threat for Vučić may be that dissatisfaction is no longer limited to traditional opposition voters.
Bursać pointed to growing frustration among people who supported the SNS but believe they have not received the benefits they were promised, while watching a smaller group become significantly wealthier during the ruling party’s long period in power.
The key question, he said, is whether these dissatisfied supporters will eventually turn against the system and whether a new political force will be capable of mobilizing them.
That possibility could become increasingly important as Serbia enters another period of political uncertainty, with student-led protests, demands for early elections and growing pressure on the ruling establishment.
The Nova Varoš incident therefore matters beyond the individual claim made by one citizen. It illustrates a potentially more serious political problem for Vučić: a system based on promises can become vulnerable when those promises stop producing loyalty.
And when people who once expected to benefit from the system begin publicly asking why they did not receive what they were promised, the political cost can be much greater than the value of a single job.
