The president is directly elected for up to two five-year terms. Incumbent president Aleksandar Vučić won reelection to a second term in April 2022 with 58.6 percent of the vote in a field of eight candidates.

The campaign was characterized by media bias and allegations of misuse of public resources. President Vučić’s media engagement as both head of state and SNS leader afforded him unparalleled public exposure and lacked clear differentiation between those roles.

The National Assembly is a unicameral, 250-seat legislature whose deputies are elected to four-year terms under a system of proportional representation with a single nationwide constituency. In December 2023, Serbia held parliamentary elections for the third time in less than four years. Simultaneously, 65 local elections were triggered by the sudden resignation of mayors from the ruling party, including the capital.

Five parties crossed the three percent electoral threshold to enter the parliament. The incumbent SNS-led coalition won 47 percent of vote, giving it an absolute majority of parliamentary seats. SNS also claimed electoral success in local elections, but control of Belgrade’s assembly depended on the decision of the “We–the Voice of the People” party, which was positioned to act as a kingmaker at the end of 2023.

Local and international observers reported numerous irregularities during the campaign and on election day. During the campaign, several factors resulted in an unequal electoral environment for candidates and provided undue advantages to the SNS. These included the disproportionately high media access afforded to progovernment parties, pressure on public sector employees and socioeconomically at-risk residents to support the incumbents, the abuse of administrative resources, and the central role of the President Vučić in the election, which contributed to the blurring of lines between the state and the SNS party. On election day, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) noted a number of issues, including procedural shortcomings in 39 percent of observations, vote buying, breaches in secrecy of the vote, and instances of group voting.

Electoral laws largely correspond to international standards, but aspects of the electoral process are poorly regulated, and implementation of existing rules is flawed.

In its report on the 2023 elections, the ODIHR noted persistent concerns over campaign finance transparency, a passive approach by the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) to regulating media conduct during the campaign, and the lack of intervention by the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ACK) regarding administrative misuse of public resources. A previous ODIHR and Venice Commission recommendation to audit the voter list had not been implemented, potentially allowing the organized migration of voters from neighboring countries.

A Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) report presented evidence that Belgrade’s elections featured organized voting by people from neighboring countries and other Serbian cities. CRTA connected its findings to additional evidence of vote buying and other forms of influencing voters. In its preliminary report for the 2023 elections, the ODIHR cited “numerous procedural deficiencies” including group voting, breaches of voting secrecy, and inconsistent application of safeguards meant to protect the integrity of voting and vote counting.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the legal framework and regulatory bodies failed to meaningfully address reported electoral abuses.

Political parties may be established freely and can typically operate without encountering formal restrictions. However, campaign finance regulations are weakly enforced and place no overall cap on the private funds raised and spent by parties and candidates.

The SNS has used various tactics to unfairly reduce the opposition’s electoral prospects. These include manipulating the timing of snap elections, exerting pressure on independent state institutions, busing in voters from neighboring countries, and mobilizing public resources to support its campaigns.

The SNS has expanded its influence over the media through its effective control of both state-owned enterprises and an array of private outlets that are dependent on government funding, and has harnessed this influence to strengthen its political position and discredit its rivals, further reducing opposition parties’ competitiveness. Opposition figures have also faced escalating harassment, intimidation, manipulation, and violence in recent years, resulting in the suppression of opposition parties’ political representation at every level.

Voters enjoy a significant degree of freedom to make political decisions without undue interference, though the ruling party and allied private businesses allegedly use patronage networks to influence political outcomes.

Various incentives have also been employed in recent years to convince hundreds of local elected officials to form alliances with the SNS or change their party affiliation after elections. SNS electoral campaigns have benefited from the misuse of public resources, such as the use of public buses to transport loyalists to rallies. Local observers reported that workers at state-owned enterprises were pressured to support the ruling SNS during the December 2023 elections. According to CRTA, social welfare beneficiaries were also pressured to vote for the SNS. SNS operatives have also been known to intimidate voters directly, by appearing at their homes and pressuring them to support the party.

The country’s electoral threshold for parliamentary representation does not apply to parties representing ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, ethnic minorities have a relatively muted voice in Serbian politics in practice.

Women enjoy equal political rights and benefit from a party-list gender quota.

Vučić’s move to the presidency in 2017 raised new concerns about the personalization of governance and politicization of state institutions. Vučić has remained the dominant figure in government despite the presidency’s limited executive powers under the constitution, creating a de facto presidential system.

The executive largely controls the legislative process, and opposition lawmakers are sidelined through the disproportionate use of disciplinary measures, frequent use of accelerated legislative procedures, and late changes to the legislative agenda, among other tactics.

Although the number of arrests and prosecutions for corruption has risen in recent years, high-profile convictions are very rare. Critics have credibly accused Vučić and the SNS government of having ties to organized crime, and cronyism—in the form of jobs provided to allies of the president and the ruling party—is reportedly common. In 2023, anticorruption prosecutors Bojana Savović and Jasmina Paunović were both removed from their positions and transferred to a different department after they indicted six individuals in the Public Enterprise Electric Power Industry (EPS) of Serbia for embezzlement. Following the transfers, Savović was publicly threatened by an SNS senior figure, Svetozar Vujačić.

Notable cases that came to light in recent years without being resolved include those of Nenad Popović, a politician who was implicated in a questionable privatization that caused an electrical transformer manufacturer to declare bankruptcy; finance minister Siniša Mali, whom anticorruption agencies have investigated for suspected money laundering; and former health minister Zlatibor Lončar, who allegedly has links to an organized crime group.

Following sanctions imposed by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Aleksandar Vulin resigned from his post as a director of the Serbian Security and Intelligence Agency (BIA).

Whistleblowers and members of law enforcement who disclosed the potentially corrupt practices of government officials have faced pressure from state institutions, including removal from their positions and arrest.

The government has received sustained criticism for a lack of transparency in large-scale infrastructure projects and for secrecy surrounding public tenders. The Law on Public Procurement has not been applied to the state-funded Belgrade Waterfront project, the construction of the Moravski corridor highway by Chinese companies, the South Stream gas pipeline, or the exhibition area for EXPO 2027.

Legislators do not have adequate opportunities to ask questions about government activities and legislation, and the vast majority of parliamentary questions go unanswered by the government.

Public officials are subject to asset disclosure rules overseen by the ACA, but penalties for violations are uncommon. While a 2004 freedom-of-information law empowers citizens and journalists to obtain information of public importance, authorities frequently obstruct requests in practice.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 due to growing opacity surrounding government spending and other information, particularly with regard to infrastructure and economic development projects.

Despite a legal framework that guarantees freedom of the press, media freedom is undermined by the threat of lawsuits or criminal charges against journalists for other offenses, lack of transparency in media ownership, editorial pressure from politicians and politically connected media owners, direct pressure and threats against journalists, and high rates of self-censorship. The media environment features extreme propaganda and the manipulation of facts around certain topics, including the relationship between the ruling parties and the opposition and Kosovo-Serbia relations.

During 2023, the media landscape was dominated by the ruling parties, which CRTA reported were represented in an average of 95 percent of media coverage. President Vučić delivered over 300 direct addresses over a period of 12 months. When the opposition was featured on television channels with national coverage, they were portrayed in a largely negative light.

The REM has been criticized for a lack of independence, particularly when deciding on allocation of national broadcast frequencies. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) characterized the media environment as “polluted by propaganda, influence peddling and fake news” after four national broadcast frequencies were awarded to progovernment media in July 2022. A fifth frequency had not been allocated year and a half after it was launched.

The state and ruling party exercise influence over private media in part through advertising contracts and other indirect subsidies. Many private outlets are owned by SNS supporters. Some privately owned national broadcasters and popular tabloids regularly participate in smear campaigns against the political opposition and other perceived government opponents.

Independent investigative groups have been increasingly subjected to harassment, intimidation, and violence by authorities and progovernment groups. Several members of the ruling party have openly threatened journalists, and Vučić regularly and publicly disparages independent media outlets. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia reported 181 attacks directed at journalists during 2023, including physical attacks, property damage, threats, and pressure.

The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, which is generally respected in practice.

Academic freedom has largely been upheld, though recent practice and legal changes have raised concerns about political influence. The Law on Higher Education, adopted by the National Assembly in 2017, increased the presence of state-appointed members on the National Council for Higher Education and a national accreditation body; another education law, also adopted in 2017, gave the education minister centralized control over the appointment of school principals.

Private discussion is generally free and vibrant, but a pattern of retribution against high-profile critics of the government has contributed to an increasingly hostile environment for free expression and open debate. Perceived government opponents, including journalists, university professors, civil society leaders, celebrities, and ordinary citizens, have faced smear campaigns in progovernment media outlets, criminal investigations, and other retaliatory measures in recent years. The government’s highest-ranking officials regularly take part in discrediting nonpolitical figures based on their public criticism of government policies.

Critics of the government who have documented endemic corruption were targeted with military-grade spyware, according to reports that emerged in 2023.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to intensifying smear campaigns and surveillance operations targeting critics of the government across various sectors of society.

Citizens are generally able to exercise freedom of assembly, though in recent years several prosecutions were launched against activists associated with the green-left coalition, which previously organized demonstrations against the contentious development project on Belgrade’s waterfront.

Numerous peaceful demonstrations, including large-scale weekly protests against violence, were held during 2023. Some demonstrations were met with force by private security agencies and masked individuals.

Foreign and domestic NGOs generally operate freely, but those that take openly critical stances toward the government have faced threats and harassment in recent years.

Workers may legally join unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike, but the International Trade Union Confederation has reported that organizing efforts and strikes are often restricted in practice, with employers allegedly retaliating against workers and union activists. According to Serbian trade union federation Independence (Nezavisnost), employers in Serbia regularly establish and register their own trade unions to undermine independent unions.

The independence of the judiciary is compromised by political influence over judicial appointments, and many judges have reported facing external pressure regarding their rulings. Politicians regularly comment on judicial matters, including by discussing ongoing cases or investigations with the media.

Due process guarantees are upheld in some cases, but corruption, lack of capacity, and political influence often undermine these protections. Among other problems, rules on the random assignment of cases to judges and prosecutors are not consistently observed, and mechanisms for obtaining restitution in civil matters are ineffective. High-profile, politically sensitive cases are especially vulnerable to interference.

The population is generally free from major threats to physical security, though some prison facilities suffer from overcrowding, abuse, and inadequate health care. Radical right-wing organizations and violent sports fans who target ethnic minorities, the LGBT+ community, and other perceived enemies also remain a concern. Two mass shootings in May 2023 prompted large antigovernment protests among citizens who criticized the police and the government for failing to uphold basic responsibilities.

Legal safeguards for socially vulnerable groups are poorly enforced. For example, though women are legally entitled to equal pay for equal work, this rule is not widely respected. The Romany minority is especially disadvantaged by discrimination in employment, housing, and education. LGBT+ people continue to face hate speech, threats, and physical violence, and perpetrators are rarely punished despite laws addressing hate crimes and discrimination.

Individuals living with disabilities are among those who live in social care institutions, and they faced protracted periods of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are no formal restrictions on freedom of movement. Serbians are free to change their place of employment and education, and have the right to travel.

In general, property rights are respected, but adjudication of disputes is slow, and problems such as illegal construction and fraud persist. An estimated two million buildings in Serbia are not registered. Romany residents are often subject to forced evictions, and those evicted are generally not offered alternative housing or access to legal remedies to challenge eviction notices.

Personal social freedoms are generally respected, and men and women have equal legal rights on personal status matters like marriage and divorce. A new law aimed at preventing domestic violence took effect in 2017, but such violence remains a problem, and at least 28 women were murdered in 2023.

Residents generally have access to economic opportunity, but factors such as weak macroeconomic growth and a relatively high rate of unemployment contribute to labor exploitation in some industries. Several reports in recent years have described worsening conditions in factories, particularly those that produce shoes and garments, including low wages, unpaid overtime, and hazardous work environments. Legal protections designed to prevent such abuses are not well enforced. Serbian and international NGOs have also issued reports regarding persistent human rights violations of migrant workers across the country, which often go unaddressed by authorities.