"For my resignation as president of the Social Democratic Party of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić he learned from the media. So much for the fact that it is a behind-the-scenes deal with SNS. There are no behind-the-scenes calculations here, but there are real political dilemmas," he told Danas Rasim Ljajic, until recently the president of the SDPS, denying that his resignation was the result of a political agreement and post-election calculations neither with the SNS nor with the student movement.
It's no secret that there have been visible disagreements between the SDPS and the progressives for some time, and that precisely because of these disagreements, the SDPS ran independently in some local elections. However, in the last month, misunderstandings culminated in the dismissal of some SDPS officials.
What is behind the resignation of Rasim Ljajić from the position of SDPS president?
"In the last month, the same SNS unjustifiably dismissed five officials at different levels of government, from local, through provincial, to republican, Ljajić notes for Danas, alluding to the dismissal of Tatjana Matić from the position of director of the Development Fund, Nataša Mihajlović Vacić, city secretary for culture, Andrije Bojanić from the position of director of Dom omladine and Dragan Đekić from the position of director of Novi Sad's SPENS.
If everything was as it should be in the relationship with SNS, Ljajić repeats, we would go to the next parliamentary elections together. He does not hide that he has a personal and political dilemma, how can the parties he founded, the Sandžačko Democratic Party (founded in 1994) and SDPS (founded in 2009), survive this referendum atmosphere politically.
"Until now, the SDP and the SDPS have always performed together, both in the local elections and in the republican elections as part of wider coalitions. Now the situation is somewhat more complicated. The SDP would prefer to go independently as a minority list, and the SDPS has not yet made a final decision. It is legally impossible for them to go together as a minority list. It is not realistic for them to go together as a citizen's list in this atmosphere of complete polarization and division into two blocs," explains Ljajić and adds that he is emotionally attached to both parties, but that there is a political dilemma, how can those parties survive politically.
When asked if his resignation as president of the SDPS, after thirty years of leading the party, was the result of those political dilemmas, the interviewee of Danas answered that he really resigned because he could not be as active as he would have liked in the SDPS, so that the whole party would be additionally engaged in this pre-election period.
"What I can responsibly assure you is that there were no secret agreements either with the students or with SNS. If there were, do you think it would have remained hidden. Well, that's impossible. At this moment, things really stand like this. What decisions will be made, at this moment, I really cannot prejudge. My political involvement in the campaign will also depend on that decision. I really cannot prevent all speculations and conspiracy theories, but I'm telling you how things are realistically now," he says. Ljajic.
Source: Today
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