塞尔维亚长期执政者欲通过职务对调扩大影响力亚历山大·武契奇是欧洲在任时间最长的领导人之一，他辞去总统职务，为其在选举后出任总理铺平道路。
Serbia’s Longtime Leader Looks to Extend His Influence by Swapping Posts Aleksandar Vucic, one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, resigned as president, paving the way for him to become prime minister after elections next month.
巴尔干国家塞尔维亚的强人领导人亚历山大·武契奇周日辞去总统职务；如果其执政党如预期在10月的议会选举中获胜，这一举措将使他得以出任总理，继续掌握权力。
Serbia’s strongman leader, Aleksandar Vucic, resigned as the Balkan nation’s president on Sunday, a move that allows him to keep his grip on power by taking over as prime minister if, as expected, his governing party wins a parliamentary election in October.
塞尔维亚宪法禁止武契奇竞选第三个五年任期，但并未限制他重返总理职位；他此前曾两度担任该职。
Serbia’s Constitution bars Mr. Vucic, who was first elected president in 2017, from seeking a third five-year term, but it does not restrict him from returning as prime minister, a post he held twice before.
武契奇是前苏联以外欧洲在任时间最长的领导人。近两年来，他一直面临由学生牵头抗议者施加的压力，他们试图打破他对塞尔维亚长达14年的控制。然而，街头抗议未能推翻他，如今武契奇的对手反而将面对他出任总理后进一步巩固权力的局面。
Mr. Vucic, Europe’s longest-serving leader outside the former Soviet Union, has been under pressure for nearly two years from student-led protesters seeking to break his 14-year grip on Serbia. But, having failed to topple him through street protests, Mr. Vucic’s opponents now face the prospect of his strengthening his hold as prime minister.
名义上，塞尔维亚总统主要承担礼仪性职责，实际行政权掌握在政府首脑手中。然而，在武契奇任职期间，无论其正式职位如何，实际权力始终集中在他手中，这得益于他对国内主导政治力量塞尔维亚进步党的掌控。
On paper, Serbia’s presidency is largely ceremonial, with real executive power vested in the head of government. Under Mr. Vucic, however, real power has always rested with him, regardless of his formal position, thanks to his control of the Serbian Progressive Party, the country’s dominant political force.
武契奇表示，15年来他只休过20天假，已经疲惫不堪。周日晚间，他在国家电视台露面，并展示了一份写有“本人特此提交辞去塞尔维亚共和国总统职务的辞呈”的文件。他说，周一将向塞尔维亚议会议长、长期忠实于他的安娜·布尔纳比奇移交职务。
Saying that he had taken off just 20 days in 15 years and was tired, Mr. Vucic appeared on state television Sunday evening and was showng a document that said, “I hereby submit my resignation from the office of President of the Republic.” He said he would hand over his duties on Monday to Ana Brnabic, the speaker of Serbia’s Parliament and a longtime loyalist.
一名曾在20世纪90年代巴尔干战争期间效力于塞尔维亚威权领导人斯洛博丹·米洛舍维奇的激进民族主义者，武契奇先生已经放弃了战争中建立“大塞尔维亚”的梦想。但他一直抵制欧洲和美国要求承认科索沃独立的压力。科索沃曾属于塞尔维亚。他与邻国波斯尼亚和克罗地亚的关系也较为紧张。20世纪90年代，南斯拉夫解体时，塞尔维亚曾与这两国交战，而它们此前都曾是南斯拉夫的一部分。
A former radical nationalist who served under Serbia’s authoritarian leader Slobodan Milosevic during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Mr. Vucic has retreated from wartime dreams of creating “Greater Serbia.” But he has resisted European and American pressure to accept the independence of Kosovo, formerly part of Serbia. He also has testy relations with neighboring Bosnia and Croatia, which Serbia fought in the 1990s when Yugoslavia, to which they all belonged, disintegrated.