The elections on December 17 are approaching and some will have the opportunity to go out and vote for the first time this year, or they will decide not to go to the polls. We talked about the atmosphere among young people, and those who are involved in the political life of Serbia or are interested in the direction Serbia will go, with Luka Babić, a student of the Third Belgrade High School and the founder of the informal association of high school students "I mi se pitamo".
"The largest number of young people are aware of problems and bad policies, but they have taken on the defeatism of society or they simply have not been promoted to elections as the best way to change something." It is absolutely a consequence of the state of society, that is, the defeatism that we have been hearing since we became aware of such processes. Then there are two more groups, those who are aware and will vote and those who don't care. There is a pronounced problem with youth abstinence in the world, but in Serbia it is precisely because of a society that does not cherish elections as some kind of "holiday of democracy", says Luka Babić for the "Vremena" portal.
The opposition addresses the youth ineptly
In these elections, as far as the opposition is concerned, young people will have a choice for a pro-European or right-wing opposition. Babić believes that he cannot find a single existing list that he could say that young people are really in favor of, but he points out that the vast majority of them are opposition lists, but not just one. Young people are also in favor of right-wing parties, as well as the opposition on the "Serbia against violence" list.
The question arises as to how much and in what way do opposition politicians, and above all the newspaper "Serbia against violence" address them? Are they sending any specific messages that are addressed to high school students?
"Politicians try to appeal to young people, not specifically high school students, but they don't do it very skillfully." I can say right away that I don't think that high school students as such require any special topics and questions for politicians, but they are mostly topics of everyday life, as with most citizens, such as pollution, city transport, education. However, young people, logically, need to be addressed in a different way than the rest of the voters, he points out.
Photo: ProGlasHowever, as he says, some government politicians recognized this, so they opened Tiktok profiles, but that it was not done in the most skillful way, so their content is extremely banal and bizarre, and therefore a topic of ridicule for young people.
"What I noticed is that right-wing parties make the best use of social networks to reach young people, which can be confirmed by the large number of their supporters. "Serbia against violence" did not approach this almost at all, but they also have the support of those who are more informed or traditionally, because of their parents and environment.
He believes that, above all, young people want their everyday life to be normal, so they are looking for such policies. They want to solve traffic jams, to normalize city transport, and not to wait for buses for 45 minutes, and then they can't even get inside because of the crowd, to solve the problem of pollution every winter, to stop the destruction of green areas, to calm the problem of rising prices, to invest in education, and not to make it the last hole in the pipe.
The president thinks that he is bribing young people with 10.000, that is an insult
In the pre-election campaign, high school students will receive 10.000 dinars each. "We will pay 10.000 dinars to each high school student, through mothers, where he lives with his father through his father, or through a foster family or special centers." We believe that this is an important measure before the holidays and that it will help parents save money," said Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Pink.
Our interlocutor thinks that those 10.000 dinars are a great insult.
"With this move, they show that they think that high school students are corruptible and that they will vote for them because of the money, because they accidentally distribute money only before the elections. The question is also what is the official purpose of that money that is distributed before every election, and what authority of the president gives him the right to distribute our parents' money in this way.
Babić thinks that they are trying to buy votes cheaply and that, for example, they could have invested as much money in each high school as its students would receive now, and it would mean every school.
"Here, first of all, in my school (Third Belgrade High School), half of the school was not functional since the beginning of the school year because the mezzanine structure was tending to fall, and the Ministry and the City did not want to finance the solution to the problem of the physical condition of the school." says Babic.
"We want a Serbia without hatred"
Luka Babić wants and hopes, first and foremost, for a Serbia without hatred. He wants no one to hate each other because of nationality, religion, ideology, determination, origin or whatever.
"I want society to turn to mutual respect and that no one should be humiliated anymore, but that there should be respect among everyone. This is how we will build a better society," concludes Babić.
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