Aleksandar Vučić is conducting an intensive tour across Serbia, appearing among citizens, listening to their complaints and promising quick solutions. But behind the carefully managed media spectacle lies a far less comfortable reality: many of the problems he now promises to solve are precisely the problems his government has had years to address.
His visits to towns, villages, hospitals and construction sites are designed to project the image of a president who is “among the people.” Yet these encounters are also exposing the other side of the campaign: frustration, difficult questions and reactions that do not always fit the carefully prepared script.
Vučić has a powerful media apparatus following almost every move. Every meeting can become a headline, every promise a propaganda opportunity, and every visit another attempt to demonstrate that the president is “working.”
But there is one problem: the more cameras follow him, the harder it becomes to hide what citizens are saying to his face.
Instead of becoming a demonstration of political strength, the tour risks turning into a public catalogue of Serbia’s unresolved problems: living standards, corruption, unemployment, public services and growing dissatisfaction with institutions.
And that is the irony of Vučić’s campaign: he wants to present himself as the man who controls everything, yet every stop on the road reminds the public that after years in power, there is still a long list of problems for which his government must answer.
Rather than looking like a leader comfortably heading toward an election, Vučić increasingly appears like a president trying to control the narrative before voters get the chance to judge his record.
The cameras can follow Vučić everywhere. They cannot erase the failures citizens keep putting in front of him.
