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A Serbian political party is on a mission to place the late Queen Elizabeth II's godson on the throne in Belgrade.
With elections on the horizon, the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia, known by its Serbian acronym POKS, is intensifying its campaign to reinstate Crown Prince Alexander Karađorđević as head of state.
POKS recognises the Karađorđević dynasty as representing the historical and dynastic continuity of Serbian statehood.
The centre-right party, which holds seats in the Serbian parliament, is the only political party in the country with the restoration of the monarchy as its core objective.
It envisions a constitutional monarchy modelled closely on the British system.
Crown Prince Alexander has a unique connection to Britain. Born in 1945 in suite 212 at Claridge's in London, the heir to the Serbian royal house entered the world on what was temporarily designated Yugoslav territory. This arrangement was made on Winston Churchill's personal orders.
The wartime prime minister ensured the hotel room was reclassified as native soil so that the infant prince's constitutional claim to the royal succession would remain intact.
The British ties deepened shortly afterwards when the young prince was christened at Westminster Abbey.
The then-Princess Elizabeth, who would go on to become Queen Elizabeth II, served as his godparent, forging a unique personal bond between the Serbian and British royal families.
Vladimir Đorđević, the party's deputy president and a Serbian parliamentarian, outlined POKS's ambitions in an interview with GB News. "We are advocating the restoration of Serbia as a modern constitutional and parliamentary monarchy.
“We are not asking Serbia to return to the 19th century. We are asking Serbia to build a modern 21st-century democracy on its own historical foundations," he said.
The role envisaged for the monarch would be strictly ceremonial. "The King will not govern Serbia; the King will represent the state and national unity," Mr Đorđević explained.
He pointed to functioning European monarchies as proof of concept. "Look at Britain, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, these are modern democracies. We truly believe we can have a modern democracy in Serbia."
Mr Đorđević also described Britain as "the mother of all monarchies and democracy."
The party insists that any return of the monarchy must come through a democratic and constitutional process, with a national referendum giving Serbian citizens the final say. "We need a referendum. That is what we lost in 1945. The Serbian people have been hoping for this for the last 70 years," Mr Đorđević told GB News.
Under POKS's proposed framework, elected institutions would retain all political authority.
The government would continue to govern, parliament would legislate, and voters would choose their representatives.
The monarch would sit above partisan politics, serving solely as a symbol of national continuity and unity.
Mr Đorđević stressed that the party's coalition partners are firmly behind the agenda. "We have a lot of coalition partners and all of them support our approach to the restoration of the kingdom of Serbia. All the leaders of those parties are supporting our agenda," he said.
Serbia's monarchical heritage stretches back centuries. The republican system that replaced it was not chosen by popular vote but imposed after the Second World War by a communist single-party regime. Multiparty democracy only returned in the 1990s.
Mr Đorđević expressed confidence that restoration is inevitable. "Serbia was a monarchy and will be a monarchy again, all the young people in Serbia are pro-monarchy. The monarchy returning in Serbia is unquestioned the only question is how long it will take."
