People's deputy Vladimir Đukanović said that he barely restrains his party colleagues from beating up the students, who are peacefully protesting. Is the government ready for even greater use of aggression or are these empty threats?
Student blockades in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad and Kragujevac are in full swing. During the blocking of the streets and honoring the victims in Novi Sad, there is a high probability that an incident will occur.
Frustrated "passers-by", thugs and people who drive cars into protest participants appear regularly.
On Monday, students of the Faculty of Agriculture in Zemun could not peacefully pay their respects to the victims from Novi Sad for 15 minutes. The trampling, they say, starts out of pure peace, although anyone who has any problem was let through.
Violence, kicking and shouting, seems to be the most popular weapon of the ruling party, its officials and paid thugs against student rebellion and peaceful blockades.
Vladimir Đukanović confirmed this with his statement.
"People are angry, they want to take the poles." They want to go and break them like straws. We can hardly contain our membership, which would be happy to let them go through the fists, to beat them up," Đukanović said on Informer television.
Careful dosing of repression
However, the question arises as to which membership Djukanović is talking about here? Is the situation in the ruling party such that, in order to stay in power, all members are ready to use hoes on bare-handed students, or are threats carried out only by certain officials and paid thugs?
Political analyst Dragomir Anđelković says that in this situation, we have to look at two different dimensions. On one side is Vučić, and on the other are all his close and distant associates.
"Vučić is leading the whole thing, but he will not immediately resort to repression." He uses tactics - little repression, little concessions and controls everything. But, if he feels that he can lose, he will become aggressive", claims Anđelković.
Fear and insecurity among his associates is another dimension, which is also crucial in how far the regime is willing to go.
"Just as Assad fled Syria and left his associates behind, so can Vučić. His collaborators will then stay here and will have to answer for their misdeeds and they are aware of that," Anđelković explains.
This causes additional aggression in them, so they are ready to go even further with repression.
"Vučić uses aggression to stay, but he doesn't want to overdo it, so as not to close the door to escape to the West," he concludes.
Analyst Darko Obradović thinks that in practice something is different, and that individuals from the Serbian Progressive Party are responsible for the violence.
"Political actors, especially those who make up the ruling majority, should influence the expulsion of violence from the social discourse." The dynamics of the protests show that SNS supporters do not participate in organized counter-rallies, but extremely debatable individuals do so," says Obradović.
Far from meeting the requirements
Repression, therefore, is cautiously dosed by the ruling elite, as if measuring it with teaspoons. The echo of violence is, despite this, great and the intimidation of students on the streets does not abate. The atmosphere is tense, but the students still remain at the blockades, because they believe that their demands are not even close to being fulfilled.
"One of the students' demands is that no more violence is perpetrated against us and that all those who have done it so far be held criminally accountable." And then Djukanović appears with a statement like this and it directly contradicts our demands", explains student Anđela Radosavljević.
This creates an additional contradiction, with which the government shows that it is still violent and does not understand the demands of the students, concludes our interlocutor.
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