Answering the questions of the journalist N1 in the Presidency of Serbia after the signing of the contract with the company Azvirt, whether the employees of public enterprises are pressured to come to the SNS meeting in Belgrade, Aleksandar Vučić ordered that no one who is being pressured should come by chance.
"I urge everyone not to come to meeting March 21 if they don't want to. For me, no one who doesn't want to can come to meetings and gatherings. "I urge the citizens of Belgrade not to come, unless they specifically want to," he said.
"Please God" not to come by force, emphasized the president of Serbia, because "no one could ever force" him to respond to the blocking parties, whatever that means.
As "Vremenu" was previously confirmed by several sources, the Serbian Progressive Party led by Vučić will hold a rally in "Arena", eight days before holding local elections in ten municipalities and cities on March 29.
Photo: TanjugAleksandar Vučić in the Arena during the last election campaign
Acknowledgement of pressures
The opposition Party Serbia Center (SRCE) announced that the statement by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, that "people are freed from the obligation" to attend this SNS rally on Saturday, is actually "recognition of the existence of a system of coercion over citizens."
With that statement, it continues, the head of state confirmed in front of the entire public what the media, non-governmental organizations and citizens have been documenting for years: that in Serbia "no one goes to pro-government rallies voluntarily, but under coercion, blackmail and direct orders".
"Vučić especially insulted and humiliated the citizens of southern Serbia, because the message that 'districts from the south have been liberated' is an insult to every resident of Nis, Leskovac, Vranje or Pirot. Vučić does not treat them as citizens, but as spare parts of his machinery that he turns on and off as needed, sends them on buses or 'allows' them to spend the weekend with their families," says SRCE.
Zdravka Ponoša party called on the competent institutions to react, asking whether measures will be taken regarding "publicly stated claims about pressure on citizens".
Photo: AP / Darko VojinovićThe President of Serbia is confident of victory in the next local elections
Still forced
Anonymous reports from employees of "Danube Insurance" and public utility companies Infostan and Gradska čistoća have been received on the email of the Move - change movement under the name "report blackmail".
"More and more employees in public companies throughout Serbia are reporting to the Start-change movement due to pressures ahead of the SNS rally," Savo Manojlović, the leader of this movement, told N1.
In the reports, it is stated that the managers approached the employees in the previous days with the request to sign the list of those who will go to the meeting, with warnings that the refusal could have consequences for their work status, according to Crani-change.
"The SNS occupied the institutions of the Republic of Serbia... A large number of citizens came forward, when we add up the past applications, there are thousands and thousands of applications that have arrived. We also submitted about 500 applications to international institutions," says Manojlović.
Photo: Tanjug / Vladimir ŠporčićSNS supporters in the Arena
Previous blackmail
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, promised that at the meeting in Jagodina on January 24 last year, people would attend voluntarily. However, one source from Nis testified differently, as to what it was about "Time" has already written.
"They started conditioning people to go to Jagodina. In my company, there has been talk for days about the fact that on Friday, at 14 p.m., several buses will leave for Jagodina. They called me too, but I definitely won't go," a source from Niš told us, who asked not to mention his name.
Also, before the famous counter rally in May 2023, with which Vučić tried to respond to the protests after two mass murders in "Ribnikar" and the villages of Mladenovac, Aleksandar Gubaš from the Archives of Public Meetings, who counts the protesters, spoke to "Vreme".
"Buses cannot be parked in the city center, but on the outskirts - and then it happens that people sleep, go to cafes, lie on the fields in New Belgrade, and don't go to the meeting at all," he said.
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