It didn't stop raining on Saturday a little before six o'clock in the afternoon, the sun didn't break through the clouds, and a rainbow didn't shine over Belgrade. If any of the participants or supporters of the fourth "Serbia against violence" protest was looking for a sign in the sky that would indicate the victory of civil good against progressive evil, they did not find it.
Just as some laughed mischievously while people drawn from all over Serbia and the region were soaking wet and cold and waiting for the culmination of the "Serbia of Hope" rally directed by Aleksandar Vučić, so the president of "all citizens" of Serbia and his progressive retinue must have grinned at the deluge in which the rival camp was washed a day later, only this time they didn't post their beaming faces on Instagram.
Held one after the other under the same untimely circumstances, these two mass public gatherings revealed the weaknesses and strengths of both sides.
The one on Friday, party-state, boasted a clear hierarchical structure and solid organization, unlimited resources and powerful media logistics. His weakness was a visibly unmotivated army ready to desert as soon as the attention of the supervisory authorities slackened. Planned as the culmination of the first decade of Aleksandar Vučić's personal rule, neither the participants of the "hope" rally nor its convenors experienced any catharsis. The soggy matter was then ironed out by TV Pink and other televisions with a national frequency, celebrating the event "which was attended by 200.000 enthusiastic people", glorifying the love of the people for its one and only leader.
Read more Aleksandar Vučić's big fiasco: Wet and suffocated on the bus
And that Saturday meeting once again showed organizational deficiencies, an unclear command structure, the absence of any resources and aimlessness. His force was a highly motivated peacekeeping force of volunteers, free people who voluntarily fight for something they believe in. The strength of this protest lies in the visible number of young protestors who are well into their sixth decade of life filled with street protests against freakish authorities. Those citizens will also take to the streets of Belgrade on June 2, regardless of the sun, rain or hail, because they are oppressed by the abnormality in which Serbia is once again wrapped up.
And they will take to the streets to shout "resignation" and blow whistles as long as it seems to them that protests against violence are leading somewhere. A staged small victory on Saturday was that RTS at the very beginning of "Dnevnik" fairly correctly reported that some people, of whom there are many, are protesting under its windows that it has been ignoring them for weeks.
And what would happen if the "Serbia against violence" protest procession went to Pink TV? Taking away the national frequency from Happy TV and Željko Mitrović TV for sowing falsehoods, promoting aggression and violence, and inciting hatred, is one of the first and official demands of these protests. The progressive government is ready to tolerate the blockade of international roads, but would very likely hire the gendarmerie to prevent such a massive protest from approaching the private Pink TV station, which is within walking distance.
And now what? The government under the baton of Vučić will do what it has done so far in such cases: it will wait for the protests to die down and in the meantime create a parallel reality in the media it controls. And make no mistake: if public opinion polls do not show a clear victory for the Serbian Progressive Party or that of Vučić's nascent "Movement for the State", there will be no early elections.
And the opposition leaders will try to maintain the motivation of opponents of this and such governments to come to protests aimed at changing Serbia, instead of packing their bags and taking out student and work visas in Western countries.
If the progressive protest showed the weak motivation of the extras, the top of the Progressive Party does not lack motivation to stay in power, because they have long stopped wondering who the whistle on the street is blowing for, they know that it is blowing for them.
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