Pre-election third eye

Branimir Nestorović was not kidnapped. He was not taken away by alien civilizations, which he had been talking about for years. While the members of the Presidency of the Movement "We - the strength of the people" claimed that they did not know where their president was and that they had been unable to get in touch with him for days, Nestorović, according to his own words, was staying in Moscow.

There, he says, he was received "at the highest level", while his movement received the status of a "strategic partner". He returned from the capital of Russia with a political mission.

"We had a request from the people of the Russian Federation to gather all Russophile parties and movements in Serbia," said Nestorović.

Among the organizations that should be part of that bloc, he mentioned the Movement of Socialists of Aleksandar Vulin - a man of special trust in Moscow, but also one of the most loyal collaborators of Aleksandar Vučić.

Nestorović did not reveal who the people from Russia he talked to were, who received him "at the highest level", nor which institution granted his movement the status of a strategic partner. He added, however, that he subsequently received confirmation from the Russian embassy in Belgrade that he can decide for himself with whom he will go to the elections.

"I received confirmation from the Russian embassy that I absolutely have the right to dispose of anything, including whether I will go with Vulin," said Nestorović.

THROUGH VULINA'S PEOPLE TO TITUS

The source of Vremena, well informed about the developments in the Russian political establishment, says, however, that Nestorovic does not have direct relations with high levels of government in Moscow. According to his knowledge, he was contacted by lobbyists associated with Alexander Vulin.

Nestorović, according to the information of our interlocutor, met with Boris Titov, the special representative of the President of Russia for relations with international organizations. This source compares his role with the position of Suzana Vasiljević in the environment of the President of Serbia. This is a contact within the government system, but not a confirmation that Nestorović was accepted at the highest level.

Unlike Nestorović, Vulin has a strong foothold in Russia that has been built over the years, claims the interlocutor of "Vremena". The key link, according to him, goes through people from the state nuclear corporation "Rosatom" and through contacts in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR.

"It is a completely parallel connection, which Vulin has been creating for years," says the source of "Vremena".

The interlocutor also questions Nestorović's claim that he received political approval from the Russian embassy to form a pre-election coalition. "In the embassy, ​​only Aleksandar Bochan-Kharchenko has direct contact with Putin. And politics is not conducted from the embassy, ​​but from the Kremlin."

This does not mean that the connection with Moscow does not exist. On the contrary: according to "Vremena" knowledge, it exists, but it is indirect and leads through the network built by Vulin. Nestorovic's story about the permission obtained at the embassy looks more like raising his own political price than a faithful description of the way decisions are made in Russia.

THIRD CLEAVAGE

The trip to Moscow was just the beginning of the pre-election plot. While Nestorović was unavailable, most members of the Presidency opposed the proposal of cooperation with Vulin's Movement of Socialists. When the president appeared, an assembly of the movement was held, at which five members of the presidency were replaced: Borislav Antonijević, Ratko Ristić, Slobodan Ilić, Aleksandar Lukić and Dragan Ivanović.

It was already the third split in the organization, which since its inception was based less on the program and party structure, and more on Nestorović's personal charisma and amazing ability to captivate a large number of voters.

The dismissed officials claim that they were kicked out because they did not agree to a pre-election alliance with Vulina. Nestorović gives the opposite version: he says that it was they who wanted an agreement with Vulin and that campaign money and an attempt to take over the movement are behind the conflict.

There is also a dispute about who decided on their replacement. Until yesterday, the members of the presidency claim that people who had not previously participated in the movement's work were brought to the assembly, with the task of voting for their exclusion. Ratko Ristić described the gathering as a "cheap fair pun." He said that the physiognomy that the citizens had previously seen in Ćaciland poured into the hall. Those people, completely unknown to him, were brought in to exclude five members of the Presidency at any cost.

According to Ristic, what used to be "We - the power of the people" has been turned into a branch of the Serbian Progressive Party. "I congratulate Aleksandar Vulin and the services that did it masterfully," said Ristic.

Expelled members do not recognize the decisions of the assembly, claim that the law and statute of the movement have been violated and announce court proceedings. Nestorović's current, on the other hand, talks about the "breakdown of the five coup plotters" and claims that the assembly was legitimate. Legally, it will still be determined who is the putschist in that story, and who made the parliamentary majority overnight. The political result is already known: all members of the presidency who opposed the president's decision were removed from the leadership. According to the statement of the movement, Branko Labus and Ana Ćurčić remained with Nestorović.

NESTOROVIC BEFORE AND AFTER 15. JULY

Slobodan Ilić, one of the expelled members, said that Nestorović was no longer the same man after July 15. "He doesn't look like that, he doesn't smile like that, he doesn't talk like that. What happened to him remains a mystery," says Ilić.

After Moscow, Nestorović, according to his own words, went to Rogaška Slatina, a Slovenian place known for spa treatment. A few days after his press conference, the movement announced that he was detained at the University Clinical Center of Serbia.

It has not been announced what he is being treated for. The movement stated that his condition is stable. In the published videos, he was visibly changed, and before his hospitalization, he did not communicate with most of the management for some time.

ANDREJ SOLVES PROBLEMS

While it is openly suspected that the future electoral list was edited by Moscow, a recording of an internal meeting of the movement revealed another political connection - the one with the Vučić family.

Borislav Antonijević claims that he met with Andrej Vučić, the brother of the President of Serbia, at the Mint in Topcider. According to Antonijević's version, Nestorović sent him to that conversation because the activists of the movement had problems on the ground. People associated with the Serbian Progressive Party, he claims, obstructed their stands and harassed members.

Antonijevic says that he did not negotiate on ministries and functions. According to him, he asked Andrej Vučić to stop the pressure on the activists, for the movement to get access to the media and for the arrears of money due to him to be paid. The most important part of his testimony comes at the end: after the conversation, the problems on the field stopped.

"Professor Nestorović thought that he should meet with Andrej Vučić, we talked about it at the meeting and the problem was resolved," said Antonijević.

Nestorović's movement subsequently announced that nobody sent Antonijević to Andrej Vučić and that he did not tell the leadership the truth about that meeting. However, Antonijevic's confession that there was a meeting remains recorded.

There is also the question of why the party, which presents itself as opposition, in order to protect its activists, access the media and pay out state money, did not turn to the competent institutions but to the president's brother.

An even more important question is how Andrej Vučić could solve problems that are not formally within his jurisdiction. If the activists of "We - Strength of the People" were really harassed by people connected to the SNS, and the harassment stopped after the conversation at the Mint, Antonijević's testimony indirectly shows where the chain of command is located, which formally does not exist, but is very clearly visible on the streets. Unlike Nestorović's political mirages, that invisible center of power leaves quite tangible traces.

photo: Tanjug

VULIN'S NETWORK WITHOUT VULIN ON THE LIST

While "We - the power of the people" was fighting over a possible alliance with his party, Aleksandar Vulin did not publicly address either Nestorović or the claims that Moscow sought the gathering of all pro-Russian forces. To prove that he did not disappear like Nestorović, Vulin appeared on Instagram.

He requested that it be established who provided the Pristina authorities with the names and home addresses of the Serbian policemen who participated in the action in Racak in 1999. He labeled such people in advance as traitors, but did not offer evidence as to who provided the information or whether it even came from Serbian institutions.

Vulin is the former director of Bija, the Minister of Police and Defense, the leader of a party that has been part of Vučić's government for years, and a politician with particularly developed ties in Moscow. Vladimir Putin and the director of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, also honored him. In 2023, the United States placed him on the list of persons under sanctions, among other things, for supporting Russian activities in the region.

However, his Movement of Socialists will not be part of Nestorović's coalition. The party announced that it does not want to be the reason for a split in "We - the power of the people", nor for harming Nestorović's health. The formal absence of Vulin from the list, however, does not erase the traces of his connections: the source of "Vremen" attributes Nestorović's entry into Moscow's political circles precisely to his lobbyists.

THE COALITION IS COMPLETELY ON THE SIDE OF THE RUSSIANS

Instead of Vulin, "We - the power of the people" is going to the elections with Vladimir Gajić's People's Party and two minority Russian parties. Thus, the Russian direction of the coalition was not softened, but became a publicly declared policy.

Gajić confirmed that Nestorović has "very good contacts in Russia" and that he relies on them for "advisory and political support". He tried to moderate Nestorović's formulation by claiming that the word "request" might not be adequate, but he stated the political commitment of the coalition without any fence.

"We are a coalition that is completely on the side of the Russians in this war, we are Eurosceptics and we are in favor of much stronger cooperation with BRICS than it is today," Gajić said.

Then he added that Russia, unlike Western countries, does not interfere in the internal political life of other countries and that "Russia always works with the state". However, it is difficult to reconcile that claim with Nestorović's public testimony that he received a request from people from the Russian Federation on how to gather parties in Serbia, and then checked in the Russian embassy with whom he was allowed to participate in the elections.

Gajić's statement removes the dilemma of whether Russophilism is just an identity decoration of the list. The coalition sided with one side in the war and announced a move away from the European Union towards BRICS. Nestorović's connections, however exaggerated, give her political legitimacy, and the People's Party a formal partner.

Not with Nestorović though.

The saga of sudden twists has also acquired a new dimension. Just two days after announcing the coalition, the People's Party of Vladimir Gajić announced that it will not participate in the parliamentary elections in a coalition with the "We are the People's Power" movement. The People's Party cites Nestorović's "serious health problems" as the reason for withdrawing from the coalition, which they say is currently prevented from making decisions, as well as internal conflicts that have been shaking his movement for days. The People's Party announced that it will go to the elections independently.

VOICES FROM MARS

Underestimating Branimir Nestorović has already proven to be a serious political mistake. In the parliamentary elections in December 2023, the newspaper "Mi - glas iz naroda" won 178.830 votes, or 4,82 percent, and received 13 parliamentary mandates.

Nestorović achieved this result without a developed party infrastructure and a classic campaign. Over the years, however, he built an audience on television, YouTube and social networks.

He said that blue eyes come from aliens from Mars, relativized scientific knowledge during the pandemic, talked about Tesla's death ray, time travel and other conspiracy theories. For him, setting up the 5G network was "humanity's greatest experiment".

However, it would be wrong to explain his result only by the credulity of the audience. Nestorović successfully combined the authority of a doctor's title with the immediacy of an entertainer and the rhetoric of a man who supposedly reveals what everyone else hides. He gained recognition on television, while on YouTube and Facebook he built a community to which he offered a mixture of medicine, geopolitics, anti-Westernism, the paranormal and conspiracy theories.

Ivana Jakšić, assistant professor at FPN, previously explained to "Vreme" that Nestorović combines the impression of expertise, based on his medical career, with warmth and immediacy in the audience. FPN professor Dušan Spasojević assessed that he is part of the establishment with access to the media, but presents himself as an alternative and gathers disaffected voters attracted by anti-globalism and stories about hidden centers of power. The movement is completely personalized: people didn't vote for the leadership, but for Nestorović, so the previous schisms didn't significantly damage it.

THIRD TIME AROUND THE CENSUS

According to a survey by the Faktor plus agency, which is close to the authorities, Nestorović's movement has around 2,9 percent of support. According to a July survey by New Serbian Political Thought, he could count on around 3,8 percent.

That puts him right around the electoral roll – close enough to become a parliamentary factor again, especially if he gets the logistics, media space or some other kind of political help. A coalition with the People's Party and two minority Russian parties should expand the organizational network and strengthen its offer among strongly pro-Russian voters.

Open cooperation with Vulin could have taken away some of his voters because part of the appeal of his movement rests on the claim that he is not part of the government. Now he got a politically more favorable construction: Vulin is not on the list, but the direction he advocated is preserved, the connections he built remain useful, and the coalition openly declares itself as the Russian side in the Serbian election campaign.

TAS THAT DID NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE AUTHORITY

In the Belgrade elections in December 2023, Nestorović's list won six mandates and became a tie: SNS and SPS lacked two councilors for a majority, while the opposition got a real opportunity to threaten the power of the progressives in the capital.

Nestorović said that he would not support anyone and requested new elections, although he also mentioned the possibility of minority support for SNS and SPS for "concrete proposals". He spoke about six-figure offers to his councilors, while Aleksandar Pavić admitted that he did not know some of them at all and that they came to the list "by recommendation".

Formally, Nestorović did not go over to the SNS side. Practically, by refusing to support the opposition, he prevented a change of government and provided the progressives with a new opportunity. The elections were repeated in June 2024, the opposition came out divided, and the SNS list won 64 mandates. The movement "We - the strength of the people" received 59.805 votes, 8,15 percent and ten councilors.

The same movement is now appearing again as the opposition. Nestorović talks about the assignment from Moscow; the source of "Vremena" says that the door there was opened for him by Vulin's lobbyists; his recent deputy admits that he went to Andrej Vučić to solve problems on the ground, and Vladimir Gajić openly places the coalition on the side of Russia in the war.

The pattern is clear: political identification is sought in Russia, practical problems are solved by the president's brother, and decisive moves do not threaten the power of Aleksandar Vučić. It does not have to be an obstacle to pass the census. In a country where conspiracy theories have become part of official politics, the offer remains simple: a little Russia, a few aliens, a lot of hidden truths, and a government that almost always benefits from it all.