Photo: Tanjug/ Dimitrije GollOn another announcement by Vučić that he will not be the president of the Progressives, Miloš Vučević said that "the absolute mood in the party is for Aleksandar Vučić to continue to lead it."
We can say that we are witnessing a sort of progressive déjà vu. Exactly one month before the extraordinary assembly of the Serbian Progressive Party scheduled for May 27 personally scheduled by its leader and the current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, after which, according to his words, he will no longer be at its head, progressive officials hear again that he is not going.
Since he came to power, and it will be eleven years now, Vučić has repeatedly announced his departure from the leadership of the party. According to the calculations of political scientist Cvijetin Milivojević, he has done this 22 times so far.
"I shouldn't be"
"I believe that on May 27 we will elect a new SNS leadership." I should not be president from then on," said Vučić in an interview with Prva television.
Then he announced that the formation of a new popular movement plans for Vidovdan.
"I am forming the People's Movement for Serbia around Vidovdan, but I remain a member of the SNS, although I hope that we will elect a new leadership." That movement will be wider than SNS and I would like to include those people who are not in SNS. "I don't know yet who will replace me at the head of the party, but I know that some of those who have lost their positions will leave SNS," said Vučić.
Already seen
Seven days after this statement, the Vice President of the SNS Main Board and Minister of Defense Miloš Vučević, who has been mentioned in the public as a possible successor to Vučić, stated that "the absolute mood in the party is for Aleksandar Vučić to continue leading it."
"There's no reason to change it when it's working so well." Visiting the committees, I see that people expect him to lead the party, there is no doubt about it. We will see what the president will say," Vucevic said in one of his now regular guest appearances on Happy TV.
Vučević pointed out that "what he can convey is that the attitude, as it used to be said, of the base - the membership, is that it expects President Vučić to still be the head of the SNS".
A little goes, a little more stays.
From the mentioned calculation, it follows that Vučić announces his resignation from the leadership of SNS at least twice a year and almost as a rule before every party assembly.
"I think the congress is scheduled for January 2019, when I plan to choose a successor," Vučić said in 2017.
"I am the president of the SNS for some time until the next Congress, that is, the Party Assembly," he said a year later.
"In any case, as far as the party is concerned, there will be changes soon", was Vučić's announcement from 2019.
"As I promised, soon the party authorities will decide, I will only be the president of the citizens of all the citizens of Serbia", is the message from 2020.
And every time that assembly approaches, prominent members send messages that Vučić is the only one who can lead not only the party but also Serbia, and that his departure would have disastrous consequences for the country.
Last year, a video appeared on social networks in which SNS vice-presidents Nevena Đurić and Vladimir Orlić asked him to remain at the head of the party.
In the video, the two of them were walking around the Serbian Parliament. Đurić said: "The Serbian Progressive Party with Aleksandar Vučić at the head is writing a new history of Serbia." Modern and contemporary, advanced and prosperous".
Orlić states that SNS, like Serbia itself, learned to win under the leadership of Aleksandar Vučić.
"He taught us and showed us how to make our dreams come true," says Orlić.
Similar statements came from other party officials, so Darko Glišić once told the president of the SNS Executive Board that if Vučić resigns, that is the worst thing that can happen to Serbia.
Vucevic stepped forward, the others are waiting.
BG
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"This is a substitute for some formal institutions, which are completely marginalized, which serve no purpose, but there is a need for them in society. There is a need to criticize the government, for example, to point out what is not working. That movement will serve as a substitute for civil society: we have an existing civil society, which is project-financed, Western-oriented, 'not patriotic enough', these are 'anti-state', and this will be a state civil society."
