Thank you for not forgetting us

ProGlas has also arrived in Kosovska Mitrovica. In the Aktiv area, mainly to younger people - about the importance of going to the polls, about what the state and politics should be, and what they have become in the last 10 years, about the message to those blackmailed into voting for the ruling party, but also to the apathetic, about everyday life in Kosovo, about which too little is known, what is the idea of ​​ProGlas and questions of responsibility - Miodrag Jovanović, professor at the University of Belgrade, writer and publisher Gojko Božović, as well as Milica Andrić Rakić, discussed program manager of the New Social Initiative, while the moderator was journalist Ana Marija Ivković of Kontakt plus radio.

Miodrag Jovanović spoke about the fact that one must no longer agree to one man turning the state into a political party, and that the most important state issues, including the issue of Kosovo and Metohija, have been reduced to the issue of Aleksandar Vučić. "If you know that the Constitution of Serbia states that the government creates and conducts policy, then you wonder why the president of the country does that? Why does one man unconstitutionally undertake such a jurisdiction and why do we agree to it?" said Jovanović.

Gojko Božović pointed out that they came to Kosovska Mitrovica to talk and listen to those present. He said that traveling around Serbia, at the "Support and sign ProGlas" forums, they constantly meet worried people, full of dissatisfaction and worry - both because there is no employment without a party card, because of the conditions of treatment and threatened existence, because the state will not help the individual, because it is identified with the party needs of the most dominant party and the will of one man - but also the hope that change will come. Božović also emphasized that ProGlas will not end with these elections, but will continue, with as many people as possible, as a kind of critical corrective for everyone who is in power, for every unfulfilled promise... He also emphasized that it is necessary to revive solidarity among citizens and dialogue.

The speakers also pointed out that it is not only necessary to change the government, but also to change the system of values, which will start with the change of government, and then a long and complex path follows.

Milica Andrić Rakić spoke about the importance of changeable government and its representativeness, i.e. the government that better represents the people, but also the present apathy and the desire to maintain the status quo. "What is the price of maintaining the status quo, we are getting worse, we are under more and more pressure. "And we keep getting messages from Belgrade that it will get even worse, and we never get any answers as to how someone is going to prevent it," she said.

It was also discussed the participation of the citizens of northern Kosovo in the elections, with the fact that this year (like the previous ones), instead of in the municipalities where they live, they will have to vote in Tutin, Novi Pazar and Raška; employees in institutions in the north of Kosovo will get on a bus with their bosses and go to the polling place as a group, while the others will have to go to those places by car, with the fact that this trip, although very short in kilometers, took hours last year. What is the message to both?

Jovanović said that, to begin with, the problem is that citizens are not allowed to vote in their places of residence, that the president takes a defeatist position and constantly whines on the screens, and that he has no readiness and determination to fight for a solution that was possible two years ago. - to vote in the municipalities in the north of Kosovo.

"And whose responsibility is it that this is no longer possible?" They will say - Pristina, but it is a game for two," added Jovanović.

When it comes to specific guidelines, he said that, no matter how much fear there is, no one can know how someone voted when they are behind the screen, and that if someone is forced to take a picture of the ballot in this upside-down system, "in the end, cross out all that you do not want to be your vote, and let there remain (uncrossed) only the one for whom you would like to vote."

He emphasized that we live in a pre-political society in which normal is something that should never be, and that he experienced the same thing he is experiencing today, 30 years ago - that the government does not allow them to speak, that they are banned from halls ... According to Jovanović, it is necessary to decriminalize political authorities, to separate private interests from state interests, and the work of institutions.

"No one must play politics, as if they were in a social game of monopoly," he continued, giving the example of the football stadium in Leskovac, which was built "like when we put a hotel on a field in a monopoly," and only later was the question asked - will there be a match, who will manage it.

"There are monopoly games and territory cards here," Jovanović concluded in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Milica Rakić Andrić said that until last year, when they voted in their municipalities, there were about 50.000 voters, and that when they voted for the first time in Raška and other places, about 20.000 people voted. She personally traveled to the polling station, a twenty-kilometer journey, for five hours.

"Since 2013, every election mechanism, or rather every negative method, was first tried here, and then applied in Serbia," she said, describing then how it looked - first in November 2013, it started with false promises and threats to physical security; later, when there was no political current strong enough to oppose it, "safe votes within the institutions" began to be collected, and the elections were held by the voters gathering, waiting for the representative of the Serbian List, who then stood at the beginning column, followed by others; from the mechanism of control with fabricated crises, real life-threatening crises have arisen.

"Kosovo is present in the campaign in Serbia in that - how much is a certain party for or against the Agreement on the Road to Normalization", pointed out Radić Andrić, adding: "Our problems come precisely because everyone is focused on the final agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, while everything else is completely on the sidelines. The Serbian authorities recently said that the medicines are arriving after two and a half years. And are you wondering what happened in those two and a half years?"

Gojko Božović pointed out that "ordinary people have much more understanding and solidarity with our compatriots in Kosovo and Metohija than the government that has ruled Serbia for more than 10 years." How the ordinary world lives, what are its real needs - we do not learn this from those who rule. The government has become personalized. It became deeply personal, without responsibility and obligations towards the constitutional order of the country."

After the address, the speakers spoke with the audience. Before asking a question, a young man from the audience said: "We thought that all of you from central Serbia had forgotten us, and then you came and thank you for that."

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