Within the next ten days it will be known whether Serbia will go to early parliamentary elections, President Aleksandar Vučić  said after a meeting of the government council yesterday, Tuesday night, which he attended. Vucic said that his party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), currently has no candidate to whom he could give the mandate to form a government.

The government crisis in Serbia erupted after Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned under pressure from student anti-corruption demonstrations. Anti-government protests are taking place daily in Serbia over the deaths of 15 people in the collapse of a cornice at the Novi Sad railway station on 1 November.

Vucic said he had four people in mind who could take over as prime minister of the country, but he said “The parties in the ruling coalition will decide whether a new government should be formed or elections should be held.”

He revealed that at last night’s meeting of the government council Interior Minister and Socialist Party leader Ivica Dacic opposed early elections. The Serbian president rejected the possibility of forming a broadly acceptable transitional government. A transitional government of personalities to prepare the conditions for democratic and free elections is a demand of the opposition, which says that in no other case will it participate in a new electoral process.

On the protest front, nothing seems to change after the resignation of the Prime Minister. Students are continuing with occupations of university faculties and demonstrations claiming that their demands have not been met. Student organizations in Belgrade are preparing a march to the city of Novi Sad, 95 kilometers away. The march will start tomorrow morning from Belgrade, make some stops in intermediate towns, and reach Novi Sad on February 1, which will be the three-month anniversary of the train station tragedy. On that day, various events are planned in Novi Sad to commemorate and honour the 15 victims of the tragedy, while students will block for 24 hours the three bridges on the Danube that cross the city.