The trigger is social instability and turmoil.
It is a type of coup, it is confused with a coup and a revolution, but there is little similarity because there is not always a change of government.
It is not carried out by the military, as in a coup, nor by a large group of people with like-minded views, which is a key characteristic of revolutions.
A coup d'état is a form of political action, and those who plan it claim that they want to restore order and stability in society.
The key characteristic is that it is carried out by an individual or a small group of people close to the government or those who are already in the ruling structure itself, explains Ivana Damjanović, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade.
"An individual, through a coup d'état, attempts to seize all power for himself and appropriate powers that do not legally belong to him."
"Since it is being carried out by someone in power, one of the motives, in addition to political instability, is personal ambition," Damjanović tells BBC Serbian.
The coup in Serbia in mid-May is being mentioned by both the government and the opposition.
Criticizing the court's decision to release activists accused of violating the constitutional order under house arrest, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić claims that "There is no example in the world of this measure being imposed on those who attempted a military coup".
He previously supported the idea of his party's activists blocking the Court of Appeal in Novi Sad until the four suspects in the beating of a female student are released, which some opposition politicians and activists viewed as an announcement of a coup.
The government is in Serbia. by the Constitution, the highest legal act of the state, divided into legislative (parliament), executive (government) and judicial branches.
The function of the president is, for the most part, a protocol part of the executive branch.
Commenting on Vučić's statement during his visit to Belgrade, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stressed the importance of "an independently functioning judiciary".
How do you attack the state?
This form of encyclopedia coup Britannica defines it as a change of power from the top that results in the sudden removal of state officials.
In a politically heated Serbia after six months of protests and student blockades sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people, Vučić's statement was just like that interpreted.
"When citizens protest against government decisions, they are exercising their constitutional right to protest."
"When the president of the republic calls for a blockade of the judiciary, he is carrying out a coup. Arrest Vučić," Savo Manojlović said, leader of the opposition movement Move-Change.
Sit down phrase It was also used by students of the Niš Faculty of Law.
"What he (Vučić) is seeking is a direct blow to an independent authority (the court) and symbolizes a coup d'état."
"A coup d'état is when someone attacks one of the independent branches of government beyond their constitutional powers," Bogdan Timotijević, a student at the Faculty of Law in Niš, told BBC Serbian.
There are experts in the judiciary, and if someone doesn't like their decision, it doesn't mean they have the right to condemn it, he points out.
The Constitutional Court did not respond to a BBC journalist's question about whether the president violated his constitutional powers with this statement.
A day later, Vučić tried to downplay the coup claims, saying he was "seething with anger... which then turned into rage".
"It is more rational to make decisions 24 hours later," Vučić justified himself in an interview with the pro-government Pink television station.
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Action and reaction
A wave of mass protests led by students who have been blocking faculties for six months, swept across Serbia after the collapse of the canopy of the twice-reconstructed railway station in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024.
They are demanding the establishment of criminal responsibility for the Novi Sad tragedy, as well as for the attacks on students, and the government believes that these requirements met.
In March, six activists and politicians from Novi Sad were detained on charges of undermining the constitutional order. They spent more than two months in detention, while another six are abroad.
After a seven-day blockade of legal institutions in Novi Sad, Court of Appeal decided on May 20th to transfer three activists to house arrest, including Marija Vasić, a professor who had been on a hunger strike for six days.
Immediately afterwards, the leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Miloš Vučević, called for the blockade of the Court of Appeals until four young men, suspected of attacking students in January when one girl's jaw was broken, will not be released.
"The release of proven terrorists, while keeping our members in detention for several months just because they defended our party premises from blockaders and thugs, best shows that parts of the judiciary are directly involved in an attempt to carry out a color revolution in Serbia," Vučević wrote on Iks.
The idea was also supported by the President of Serbia, calling the arrested progressives heroes.
Vučević was arrested three months ago precisely because of that incident. resigned to the post of prime minister.
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Serbia: The January 6th Dictatorship
In the Balkans, coups d'état throughout history have most often been carried out by rulers, seeking to expand their own powers and reduce the jurisdiction of the judiciary and executive, points out historian Aleksandar Životić.
In Serbia, in 1929, King Alexander I Karađorđević dissolved the Parliament, suspended the Constitution, and banned the work of all political parties and organizations, during a period known as the January XNUMXth Dictatorship.
His namesake from the Obrenović dynasty had previously decided to take this step in 1893, when he dismissed the government and the regency, assumed royal powers and announced changes in the political course of the then state.
"He suspended the constitution three times, reinstating the old ones and introducing unconstitutional conditions," Životić tells BBC Serbian.
Obrenović and his wife Queen Draga Mašin were assassinated in 1903, and a group disgruntled conspirators led by officers she then carried out a coup d'état.
'One coup, a sign that there will be more'
Watch a video about the coup in Myanmar
A coup d'état was attempted in South Korea in early December 2024 when Yun Suk-yeol, the then president, declared state of emergency to "eradicate" anti-state forces", accusing the opposition of disrupting the government's work.
The opposition demanded his impeachment, and after mass protests, the president reversed the decision.
However, by the decision of the Constitutional Court in in April 2025 he was replaced.
Latin America has long been the scene of frequent coups, just like Africa, in the second half of the 20th century.
Since the 1950s, there have been 206 coup attempts on the African continent, researchers have found. Jonathan Powell and Clayton Tyne, and between 1960 and 2000, an average of close to four per year.
"African countries had favorable conditions for coups - poverty and poor economic performance."
"When there is one coup in a country, it is often a sign that there will be more," Jonathan Powell previously told the BBC.
The most in recent years has been in Sudan - 16, and six of them succeeded.
Burkina Faso, a small country in West Africa, has survived nine successful and one failed coup d'état.
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