While waiting for the day when the election date will be known and while President Aleksandar Vučić is weighing and keeping everything on a low flame by reading public opinion surveys every day, a confusing news has arrived from the opposition scene. Green-Left Front (ZLF) will, it was announced, support Student list if the elections are held in the summer. And if they don't, then he continues talks with other opposition parties.
Dobrica Veselinović, MP and member of the ZLF Presidency, says that this "short-term" decision was made at their Grand Council as a response to Vučić's "smoke screens" and as the most logical. In an interview with "Vreme", Veselinović criticizes the opposition's habit of doing things "on the spur of the moment" at the last moment, but also criticizes the lack of structure in the student movement. First of all, he says that he does not believe that there will be elections in the summer and that he still believes in "wider cooperation of all".
"Not only on the strictly opposition scene and among students, but also on the trade union scene, in civil society, in the free media. Times are unprecedented and we don't have the luxury of dividing, splitting, leaving people on the sidelines and for someone to get angry," says Veselinović.
"WEATHER" Isn't it delusional to call for a united front if the students have already almost drawn up a list and don't want to cooperate with the opposition unless it blankly supports them?
DOBRICA VESELINOVIĆ: I believe that for victory it is necessary that no one be left out - no man, no peasant, worker, student or opposition activist, no bicycle... It is not so important who will be on the list itself, except, of course, that they are credible people who will not crack under pressure. We are fighting to change the system. It is counterproductive to join the list before the elections have been announced, let alone collect signatures. Everyone knows that the lists change by the time of submission.
Is it true that within the ZLF itself there are radically different views on how to proceed??
I would not say that the views are radically different, nor that there are camps. But there is a different view of this moment. Otherwise, we foster pluralism in the party, so we reached this position by consensus. You know, right now many people have dystopian thoughts - they talk about a doomsday moment and that if the students don't support themselves now, then we will fail and Vučić will rule forever. I don't think that's the case. Social processes don't just break down one day, they are about to break down one day. I see the student protests as a continuation of the protests against the demolition in Savamala, the "One in five million" protests, those during the corona, then "Serbia against violence" and the protests after the massacres in "Ribnikar" and Dubona. Each time a new social group was involved.
From your decision to support students if there are elections "hastily" it could be read that the opposition did not move forward in the pro-European agreement "column" in which you would be too?
Here is the criticism from the inside: the opposition has not found its way in the year and a half since the fall of the canopy. After the excellent result of the coalition Serbia against violence in December 2023, part of the opposition boycotted the local elections where we had a clear path to defeat the Serbian Progressive Party. The opposition was caught in a gap there and has not recovered to this day. There is a large number of people in the opposition who have the knowledge, intelligence and experience to help overthrow the regime, and I see that as our task.
So why is the deal going so sloppily?? Elections were requested a year ago...
The cause is the lack of coordination and discussion of everyone in our society. I mean us, but also students, the civil sector, trade unions... The regime of Aleksandar Vučić destroyed the potential for dialogue and agreement because it created such a general atmosphere. Not a single major issue has been raised and resolved - Kosovo, regional relations, relations with Russia and the European Union... Everything is polarized. This has an impact on relations in the opposition and organizational culture.
Second, we in the opposition are also campaign-oriented, as is a good part of our society - there are no elections yet, so we will increase the gas when the time is right. We should be more serious, better, act strategically, but in the end somehow we always solve things on the spur of the moment. Like our football team that leads 1:0 and then loses 3:1.
And again, I believe that an agreement will be reached when the elections are near. Experience tells us that. I voted for the first time in 2000 - as a high school student, I went to protests over the capture of Studio B, there was chaos, chases with the police... No one believed in unifying the opposition and finding a decent candidate yet. And then we still got DOS and the blitzkrieg campaign. I remember concerts, rallies, Otpor and students, so everything came together. I expect a similar scenario now.
While you are waiting, Vučić is already on the campaign trail..
He is campaigning all the time. To continue the historical parallel, Vučić is different from Slobodan Milošević because he uses every media for personal promotion. He destroyed the institutions and nothing works without his amen. But it has its price in the form of people's saturation. Citizens see that even the big projects in which Vučić sticks his flag in advertising, such as the railway from Belgrade to Budapest, show the characteristics of an authoritarian regime. There, corruption goes hand in hand with incompetence, and that leads to disasters.
ZLF has ten MPs., so the foreigner is entitled to about 60.000 euros per month for political work. Public opinion surveys can be done for tens of thousands of euros. Do you have reliable research that suggests the best way to organize for elections?
Everyone is doing research with everyone now. The big problem with that is that a significant percentage of people no longer want to answer the phone or receive interviewers in their homes. I invite different agencies to publish their research because, unfortunately, we now have mostly those published by Ipsos and Faktor plus in the public. And those announcements again end up in a whirlwind of polarization.
I am asking you about the research into which you have insight.
They say that a good percentage of people have not decided whether they would rather vote for a unified anti-regime front or for a specific column. It is irresponsible to talk about numbers because we do not know how things will develop. Maybe we will have a united front, maybe only a student list supported by the opposition, and maybe a pro-European opposition list and various right-wing options will come.
Is there any contact with students at all??
The student movement has characteristics that have not appeared on the political scene here in recent years - it is depersonalized, decentralized, and decision-making is deconcentrated. Come, students change according to individual plenums, come, go, disappoint or become enthusiastic. That's what we went through as well, as Belgrade We Don't Drown. It's normal to get tired, to change focus.
None of the initiators of the rebellion among the students wanted this - they were studying, they wanted a better society, but they didn't want everything to fall on their shoulders. Even now, people meet me on the street and say that it's "now or never", that if the government doesn't fall, they'll take their children and move to Germany. That's a lot of pressure. Of course, there are certain contacts with students, through professors and the like. But due to the described nature of the student movement, the decision to coordinate with the opposition is very far away. It should also be said that the student movement is under various influences.
What do you mean??
You have seen it yourself - wiretapping, various services, informers, arrests... it affects a young movement that is so difficult to go through the process of structuring. And we experienced that as We are not drowning Belgrade - in theory it is called the tyranny of the absence of structure. If the movement does not have clear rules and structure, then it tends to exclude some people from decisions because people do not know how to participate, what are the rights and obligations... And they cannot move through the hierarchy. Then we saw that they give up participation in an organization that is apparently horizontal and open, but of course has invisible power relations. This is what is happening to students now.
Democratic Party and Kreni-they changed "bezuslovno" supported the students, like many public figures. Your parliamentary colleague Pavle Grbović thinks that support is not always there "unconditional", already transactional - that many aim to get something from students. What do you think??
I don't see the point of a political party or organization that "unconditionally" supports something that does not have a clear structure, program and plan. It's frivolous. Then why did we organize ourselves and have a program, committees, and activities? It's fine to support efforts for change, but what is that change? Will society be more open or closed, with greater or lesser inequality, are we going to join the EU or not, are we going to resolve relations with Kosovo or not?
You set out with your feet on the ground because of the collapse in Savamala, once you were the young hope of the political scene. Does it hurt you when you are now classified as a scumbag and an eternally incompetent opposition?
Absolutely not. From the position of someone in their forties, of course I remember the time when I was twenty with the set. But youth also has limits. It's not good or bad to be young or old, it's a question of freshness of ideas. I learned a lot in ten years in politics, it was a transformative life experience.
We were created as a response to the fact that in Serbia no one talks about climate change, social inequality... If you had asked our present MPs and councilors ten years ago, most of them would have said that there is no chance of getting into the parliamentary benches, that politics is bad, corrupt. But we made a breakthrough. It could have been better, there were a million mistakes, but we tried to learn from them.
While we are talking, Vučić has not yet decided when the elections will take place, citing some state reasons. What does it actually weigh??
First, he releases trial balloons to see the realignment on the student and opposition fronts. To see who will surface there, then to target him. Also, it releases a smoke screen so that we deal with the date, and not with the change campaign that will attract the most important part of the people - those five to ten percent who once voted for SPS and SNS, but now they might vote for someone else. But they don't see the other one yet, they need a figurehead, they need a positive plan, the belief that there won't be a revolution or that someone will arrest them in their apartments. Those people should be attracted.
The SNS list will bear Vučić's name, maybe he will be a candidate for prime minister. Now he seems angry at "arrogant" government officials. Why Vučić still has a significantly higher rating than the party?
Because his party is bad.
And he is good.?
No, he's the worst. A party should be like a class at school. If you have a low GPA, even good kids fail. If it's a good class, then even the worst students will be pushed to do better. Vučić deliberately created a party full of incompetents, ignoramuses and henchmen so that he could steal more. Who is honest enough to agree to this nonsense they do? Post-election polls in Hungary show that support for Fidesz dropped by twenty percent as soon as they lost the election. There are also people in SNS who joined out of conviction, who now need a helping hand.
That the elections are in a month, how many activists the ZLF would have immediately for the campaign and people for the electoral committees?
photo: marija janković...
A year ago, we started a new training campaign for election control, and we are doing it with dedication and expertise. As a parliamentary opposition, we have a number of permanent members of election boards and election commissions. I don't know the exact number, but surely we already have thousands of people ready. We had dozens only in local areas where the elections were held recently, although the ZLF did not come out as a party, but in support of student and opposition lists. Controlling the election is not the key to victory, but it is the icing on the cake, because theft must be prevented.
Unfortunately, I was personally in several places on election day - the amount of violence and how much the police neglect the safety of citizens is worrying. I am afraid that the day of parliamentary elections will be a risk for peace in the country. A society cannot be happy if compatriots, neighbors, godfathers and friends are chasing each other in the streets because of politics.
There will be a vote somehow.... what are the odds that either side will admit defeat, given the distrust?
If you ask me when I have a better day, I would call all political and social actors to restore trust in the electoral process, to show that free voting is a value in our society. Let's look at our neighbors - in Hungary, Croatia, BiH or Romania, the election results are accepted. They are published on the official website, because we are in the 21st century. Of course, the biggest responsibility lies with SNS, which completely destroyed trust because it does not believe in free voting.
If you ask me when I'm in a bad mood, I'm afraid that the elections are a stopover that will result in serious chaos in the streets, a fight of all against all. Then the cycle of instability, mistrust will come again. The whole society emerges from this with more wounds and cracks and with fewer solved problems, starting with severe poverty and continuing.
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