Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has stepped down as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) at a party congress, saying a new approach was needed to unite the country, but said he would remain as head of state.
The move came a day after tens of thousands of people from across Serbia and neighbouring Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia rallied in the centre of Belgrade in a show of support for Mr Vucic, following large anti-government protests over two mass shootings that killed 18 people earlier this month.
Another anti-government protest is scheduled for later on Saturday.
Leaders of the SNS accepted Mr Vucic's resignation offer at the party congress in Kragujevac, in central Serbia, and appointed Defence Minister Milos Vucevic to replace him, as Mr Vucic had proposed.
Mr Vucic told the congress he believes "a slightly different approach is needed to unite a greater number of those who want to fight for the victory of patriotic Serbia … a successful Serbia that will focus on its citizens, for a country that will not look for reasons for division, but for unification and togetherness".
Opposition parties and rights watchdogs have long accused Mr Vucic and the SNS of autocracy, stifling media freedoms, violence against political opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime. Mr Vucic and his allies deny the accusations.
Vucic to remain president, party member
Mr Vucic told SNS congress he would stay on as head of state and would remain a party member.
"I will never leave this party, I am proud to have led the best party all these years," he told cheering delegates.
After his appointment, Mr Vucevic confirmed the SNS will join an umbrella political organisation which Mr Vucic plans to create on June 28.
"If Vucic is a locomotive of that movement, the first railcar would be the SNS," Mr Vucevic told reporters.
Mr Vucic announced the new movement for the SNS and its allies, unofficially named the People's Movement for the State, in March.
Mr Vucic became president of the SNS in 2012, replacing Tomislav Nikolic, who had held the post since 2008 when the party was formed as an offshoot of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party.
He first served as the deputy prime minister and prime minister, and was then elected president in 2017 and in 2022. His second and last term expires in 2027.
Along with its allies, the SNS holds a majority of 164 seats in the 250-member parliament.
A nationalist firebrand during the wars in the 1990s, Mr Vucic later embraced pro-European policies, proclaiming Serbia's membership in the European Union its strategic goal.
He also maintains close ties with Russia and China.
NATO urges Kosovo to de-escalate tension
NATO on Saturday urged Kosovo to dial down tensions with Serbia, a day after Kosovan government forcibly accessed municipal buildings to install elected ethnic Albanian mayors in ethnic Serb areas in the north of the country.
The resulting clashes on Friday between Kosovan police and protesters opposed to the mayors prompted Serbia to put its army on full combat alert and to move units closer to the border.
"We urge the institutions in Kosovo to de-escalate immediately and call on all parties to resolve the situation through dialogue," said Oana Lungescu, a NATO spokeswoman.
She said KFOR, the 3,800-strong NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, would remain vigilant.
Almost a decade after the end of a war there, ethnic Serbs in Kosovo's northern region do not accept Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia, and still see Belgrade as their capital.
The ethnic Serbian community boycotted municipal elections in April in protest that their demands for more autonomy had not been met, allowing ethnic Albanian candidates, who form more than 90 per cent of Kosovo's population but are a minority in the north, to take control of local councils.
Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti defended police actions in escorting the new mayors to their buildings on Friday.
"It is the right of those elected in democratic elections to assume office without threats or intimidation. It is also the right of citizens to be served by those elected officials," Mr Kurti said on Saturday.
Things were still tense in the north part of the country on Saturday, with heavily armed police forces in armoured vehicles guarding municipality buildings.
Reuters/ABC
