The banker, the basketball star, the cardiologist and the chemist: meet Serbia’s potential new leaders

BELGRADE, Oct 28 – After a leaderless student-led demonstration motion swept Serbia’s previous President Aleksandar Vucic from power in a historical breeze election on Sunday, the nation is waiting to hear who it will designate as prime minister and to other essential ministerial positions as it forms a federal government.Here are a few of the popular prospects on the trainees’ list.PREVIOUS CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR DEJAN SOSKIC, 59Dejan Soskic, a financial expert and teacher at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Economics, acted as guv of the reserve bank in between 2010 and 2012, before resigning in demonstration at legal changes that he argued jeopardized the organization’s self-reliance. He has actually for years been a singing challenger of Vucic’s federal government.Soskic, who was a passionate bicycle rider in his youth however has actually mellowed into a gently spoken reformer, has actually regularly criticised the nation’s institutional weak points under Vucic. In 2021, he stated, without providing proof, that systemic corruption in the Balkan state was more extensive than in neighbouring nations which it was discouraging domestic and foreign direct financial investment. Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party have actually consistently rejected allegations of corruption.Soskic states that sensible public financial resources will produce a steady structure for an irreversible boost in earnings and pensions.Pro-government media have actually criticised Soskic’s reserve bank record, implicating him of activating the devaluation of the dinar throughout his period. Soskic has actually safeguarded the devaluation as a reflection of the compulsory financial policies of the time instead of an individual failure.Throughout the election project, in order to increase export competitiveness, Soskic proposed remedying, or weakening, the exchange rate of the dinar – which is in a handled float versus the euro – to make domestic products more affordable in foreign currencies. An option, he recommended, would be to preserve a repaired, more powerful currency exchange rate however lower expenses by cutting incomes.CARDIOLOGIST AND PROFESSOR ILIJA SRDANOVIC, 55Ilija Srdanovic, a practicing cardiologist, teacher at the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Medicine and an eager bicyclist, ended up being the trainee motion’s lead prospect when the tally list was settled in September.Srdanovic’s shift to frontline politics started throughout the student-led anti-corruption presentations, where he often looked like a speaker. The doctor took part in the motion’s “Guardians of the Constitution” bike trip throughout the northern Vojvodina province.Srdanovic campaigned with the guarantee of a decentralised health system “at the service of citizens and based on equality for all patients”In an interview with the Belgrade-based FoNet news firm, Srdanovic stated his political goal was constructing “a better Serbia, nothing else is important”He decreased an invite from Vucic to take part in a televised dispute throughout the project.Some of his policies do not represent a sharp departure from some of Vucic’s. He worried the Student List position that Kosovo, which stated self-reliance from Serbia in 2008, stays an important part of the nation. He likewise stated that European Union combination is not an existing concern which the instant focus for the inbound administration should stay on domestic anti-corruption reforms and nationwide “existential survival”PREVIOUS BASKETBALL STAR DEJAN BODIROGA, 53Dejan Bodiroga, the previous captain of the Yugoslav nationwide basketball group and existing EuroLeague president, is among the trainee motion’s most popular speakers.He explained Sunday’s election as a battle “for the return of a country that has been hijacked”The enter politics is the current chapter in a life that has actually grasped the basketball-mad country – from recording back-to-back FIBA World Championship gold medals in 1998 and 2002 and leading the then Yugoslav group to an Olympic silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games to getting in senior sports administration upon his retirement as a gamer in 2007 and being designated as EuroLeague president in 2022.Throughout the election project, Bodiroga appeared at trainee rallies and participated in al fresco folk dancing in rural towns. His fans regularly cheered him with a 1990s motto “We have our God, his name is Bodiroga.”CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR RADOMIR SAICIC, 64Radomir Saicic, a natural chemistry teacher and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), was the face of the trainees’ election win on Sunday, taking the podium at their head office after Vucic yielded defeat to hail the result as a “citizens’ victory”He is a professional in medical chemistry whose research study concentrates on the synthesis of chemotherapy treatments and antiviral treatments, consisting of an unique COVID-19 job in cooperation with the Pasteur Institute.Saicic signed up with the student-led anti-corruption demonstrations that followed the 2024 collapse of a train station canopy in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad. He ended up being a target for pro-government tabloids after signing a petition with 24 other academics requiring Vucic’s resignation, and in May 2026 he left of a SANU gallery exhibit to oppose a look by Nikola Selakovic, the minister of culture.Throughout the project, he informed crowds that Serbia was “occupied from within” and stated he was prepared to put “even his life” at the disposal of the trainee motion.Saicic states Kosovo is a “temporarily occupied territory” and backs energy ties with Russia.Political experts and regional media have actually tipped him as a competitor in the governmental election which will likewise be set off by Vucic’s current resignation from the post. REUTERS