History may not be about to repeat itself in Serbia, but it is beginning to rhyme. Just over a quarter of a century ago, Serbian citizens turned out to vote in large numbers to inflict a historic defeat on the then strongman in Belgrade, Slobodan Milošević, who was seeking re-election as president. He lost despite his extensive control over the media, the judiciary and the security forces. When he was reluctant to leave office, Serbs poured on to the streets in their hundreds of thousands, finally forcing him to go.

On Sunday, a new generation could have the decisive voice in an equally fateful election, this time for the national parliament. Today’s strongman, Aleksandar Vučić, recently resigned as president to fight the election with the aim of swapping the locus of power from the presidency to the prime minister’s office.

But Vučić, who has been in almost total control of Serbia for 14 years, finds himself on the back foot for the first time since he assumed power, just as Milošević did in 2000. Like his close friend, Viktor Orbán, who was decisively beaten in elections earlier this year, Vučić has felt compelled to pull out all the stops to halt the opposition electoral coalition, known as the Student List (SL).

Unlike Orbán’s Fidesz party, Vučić’s Serbian Progressive party (SNS) is unlikely to be humiliated in Sunday’s vote. Opinion polls vary widely – some giving the SL a lead of almost 10 percentage points, others suggesting the race is neck and neck. Pollsters also........

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