The only billboards visible when entering the northern Serbian town of Kula, where local elections were held at the weekend, were those of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS.
The main character on the billboards was President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s omnipresent political leader, who is no longer the official head of the party but remains the focus of its electoral campaigns.
Coming after more than a year of student-led protests against Vucic and his government, the elections in Kula and nine other municipalities on Sunday were a crucial test for the ruling SNS.
Although it was grey and rainy, one of the coldest days in March, with a sharp wind blowing across the Vojvodina plain, many people were on the streets of Kula. These weren’t only locals, but incomers from cities like Novi Sad, Zrenjanin, Sombor and Belgrade – both ruling party loyalists and people who came to support the student-led opposition candidates and monitor the election process. Police were everywhere, and all around town, parked cars with masked men inside could be seen.