The student list has a rare political advantage: a victory that did not come from party routine, but from a social revolt against humiliation, corruption and violence. But that is precisely why one must guard against the most dangerous illusion: that moral supremacy regulates institutions by itself
Government experience Zoran Djindjic leaves no room for a comforting story about On the fifth of October. It cannot be talked about only as a beautiful memory, nor as a completed holiday of democracy. The fifth of October did not fail because it was not a victory. It was a great and historic victory. But victory overthrows power; the change of the state dismantles the order that produces, nourishes and protects that government.
Then the political moment was won, but the institutional depth was not won. The people at the top were changed, but the rules, services, money flows, fear and habits of obedience were not changed fast enough. That difference between defeating the regime and changing the country cost us dearly.
Today, after the victory Student lists, that distinction must not be lost sight of again. The situation is not the same. Djindjic's government was formed from a broad coalition that knew whom it was overthrowing, but did not have the same answer to the question of what kind of state it was building. The student list comes with an absolute majority. This does not mean that the work will be easier, but that there will be fewer excuses.
The biggest mistake after the Fifth of October was not knowing what to do. It was known. The problem was that political victory was believed to produce institutional order by itself. She didn't produce it. The state has its own inertia. She remembers cadres, loyalties, secrets, blackmail, habits, informal hierarchies. In a sociological sense, a regime is not just a set of people in power, but a network of interests, institutions, fears and symbolic power. If that network remains intact, it survives the defeat of its leader.
The country does not change by entering the cabinet of the minister. It changes where the regime is most deeply entrenched: in files, services, public money, frequencies, public enterprises, tenders that are not and party orders that have the force of law. If these mechanisms are not dismantled, the regime will survive its own defeat. Lose face at the top, but keep reflexes, people, money, archives and fear.
That is why the victory over Vučić is not measured only by whether he lost the elections. It is measured by whether his machine will run out of fuel. And that machine won't stop by itself. It has capital that Milošević did not have in the same form after 2000: media, business, personnel, local and intelligence. These are televisions, tabloids, public companies, local powerful people, companies used to state affairs, party trustees, bot networks and people who have learned that government should not be asked, but served.
That capital will try to buy time, story and fear. The first attempt at political survival will not come as a program, but as a narrative. They will say that the lustration is revenge, the investigation is persecution, the opening of contracts is chaos, the dismissal of the illegal director is a purge, the control of public money is an attack on stability, the release of the media is violence against the media. This inversion will contain the first serious political battle of the transitional period.
That's why the Student List must not produce images of revenge, but it must not wait for the system to rebuild itself either. It takes a steady hand and a precise cut: faster than obstruction, slower than anger.
In a philosophical sense, this is not about revenge, but about the restoration of public order. Justice must not be rematch, but neither must reconciliation with the state's crime against its own citizens. Law must replace will, procedure revenge, evidence a political rallying cry.
Therefore, the transition period must begin where all responsibility begins: in the provision of evidence. In ministries, public companies, police, BIA, tax authorities, cadastre, prosecutor's offices, regulatory bodies and state funds, documentation must be protected immediately.
A digital trail must be provided and know who had access to items, contracts, pay lists and official notes. Without evidence, any reform becomes a moral speech. And the moral discourse in Serbia lasts until it is eaten by the next tabloid headline.
At the same time, the issue of the force apparatus must be opened. This is where Fifth October stumbled the most. The JSO rebellion was an early warning that democratic government cannot rely on an apparatus that acts as a separate center of power at a crucial moment. It doesn't have to look the same today. It doesn't have to be a column under arms. It is enough for the police not to provide information to the prosecution, for the official note to be lost, for the witness to be frightened, for the investigation to fall asleep. The authoritarian apparatus does not have to shoot to defend itself. Sometimes it is enough to be silent.
That is why special prosecutorial police is not a technical issue. It is a question of whether the prosecution will have hands or will still have to beg those it should investigate. But there must be no improvisation either. The new government must not create its own party police instead of theirs. He must establish an office that answers to the law, the prosecutor and the court, not the winner of the election.
Lustration comes only when the big word is translated into a precise procedure. The experience after 2000 is inexorable: the law existed, the commission did not come to life, files were not opened, responsibility was not determined. If the Student List wants lustration, it must immediately say what its subject is, for what acts, in what procedure, with what evidence, before what body and with what legal protection. Affiliation must not be punished, but abuse of public power. A man blackmailed to go to a meeting must not be equated with the man who organized the blackmail.
The connection between the state and money must be cut with particular care. Vučić's system did not live only on propaganda. He lived on public procurement, special laws, interstate contracts, public enterprises, subsidies, advertisements, rigged tenders and fear of suppliers.
Corruption is not just a moral turpitude. It is a way of management. It produces obedient CEOs, dependent media, blackmailed workers and rich middlemen. If the way of disposing of money remains the same, the change of government will only produce a new class of untouchables.
Even the media is not freed by a simple change of editor. There must be no victorious revenge and political takeover of frequencies. But there must not be false neutrality towards a system that has turned public information into a factory of fear. Media freedom is established by exposing the owners, abolishing the covert financing of the obedient, reforming the REM, freeing the public service and publishing the streams of state advertising. The national frequency is not a spoil of war.
Behind everything stands the public sector, the broadest social base of authoritarianism. This is where the system can be seen most clearly, because it hits a person in the stomach. A citizen who knows that his job depends on the party's message is not a free citizen. Formally, he can vote as he wants. But if the director keeps track of who did not show up at the meeting, if his contract expires in three months, his freedom remains written in the law, but not in his life. Depoliticization of the public sector is therefore not an administrative reform, but a social protection of freedom.
The most important thing, however, is that the new majority immediately accepts the limitations of its own power. If the Student List wants to dismantle Vučić's system, it must start with rules that will not only apply to the losers, but also to the winners. Power changes when other people sit in the same offices. The country changes when those other people can no longer do what they resented the previous ones.
The student list has a rare political advantage: a victory that did not come from party routine, but from a social revolt against humiliation, corruption and violence. But that is precisely why one must guard against the most dangerous illusion: that moral supremacy regulates institutions by itself. It does not edit. Institutions are governed by rules, evidence, deadlines, the public nature of work and the government's willingness to lose a battle before an independent body.
If the first decision is only to change people, the perverted system will survive. If among the first decisions are the protection of evidence, disclosure of money flows, independent investigation, clear lustration, free public service and competition instead of party appointments, then victory will begin to resemble a change of state.
The most important test of the Student List will not be how quickly it can punish Vučić's men. The most important test will be how quickly it can create institutions that, as soon as tomorrow, will be able to control its representatives in government. Only then the defeat of an autocrat will not only be a change of power, but the end of the authoritarian model of the state against which we declared in the elections.
The author was the assistant minister for labor in the government of Zoran Đinđić
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