Even Vučić Had To Wait

For a brief period today, Serbian politics experimented with a radical form of equality: Aleksandar Vučić had to stand in line.

Reuters reports that the longtime leader waited nearly two hours to vote as large numbers of Serbians turned out for parliamentary elections. A student-led movement is challenging his hold on power. The race is uncertain, and the students’ electoral list includes professors, actors and farmers, rather than simply a parliament full of students.

No result is being announced here. A queue is not an exit poll. It is, however, a useful demonstration of what happens when the person accustomed to being the reason everyone waits becomes a person waiting.

The line does not care about your press conference. It does not become shorter because you have explained the historic importance of your administration. It advances when the person ahead of you finishes.

There is something almost indecent about this arrangement. Surely a government adviser could prepare a diagram showing that the national interest begins four places farther forward.

Picture the official motorcade trying to merge with a queue. The flashing lights are impressive. Unfortunately, the woman in the cardigan has been here since before breakfast, and she has jurisdiction over the gap in front of her.

That scene is imaginary. The charm of an ordinary voting line is that it makes the imaginary scene feel satisfying.

Vučić says he will respect the election result. His opponents will want to judge the actual conduct and outcome, not a photograph of him waiting patiently. Participation and a competitive-looking morning are not, by themselves, a complete election assessment.

Still, institutions become healthier when public officials encounter rules they cannot personally shorten. A leader should occasionally discover that the system contains a person whose job is to say: after the next voter.

Serbia’s future will be determined by more than one morning’s queue. But for those two hours, the line had a wonderfully uncomplicated constitution.

You are important. So is everyone ahead of you.

Source: Reuters, October 25. The motorcade and adviser are satirical inventions; no election outcome is asserted.