At the beginning of the school year, Serbia is again pending - whether or not they will be announced elections. The decision about it, which was announced several times and then postponed, took on a new meaning because it is Aleksandar Vučić recently announced that parliamentary elections will be held on October 18 or 25.
For this purpose, the extraordinary session of the parliament was rushed, where 58 new laws were adopted in a week and, most importantly, the budget rebalancing, which should bring one billion euros to the citizens of Serbia to help overcome the "energy crisis", as Finance Minister Siniša Mali explained.
The opposition claims that the real goal is "buying votes", because the bulk of the money will go to those social groups that should once again support the list led by Vučić.
And he, tirelessly, continued with his tour of Serbia - sometimes in one day he falls six, seven places in the booze. He meets with his electoral base, which is called regular presidential duties in the government-controlled media.
PHOTO: TANJUG/ AMIR HAMZAGIĆSAME STORY, SAME PROMISES: A. Vučić's tour of Serbia
ROPES, RACE STARTING GUN?
Over the weekend, he was in Užice, where there was a clash between citizens and members of the security of the meeting that was scheduled on Partizan Square. The regime and its sympathetic media accuse opponents of trying to provoke violence; those who are against Vučić say that he was not welcome in Užice, that there were no people from Užice at the rally, and that Vučić's thugs beat the citizens.
Vučić did not explain what really happened in Užice except that, while visiting the "Danube Corridor", he mentioned that those who threatened to ride someone are now alone in such a situation and that citizens can imagine what Serbia would be like if "such people came to power". And then, further, that such people would "cram into camps" everyone who does not think like them and that Goli Otok will soon be an island of happiness for what is in store for Serbia if he does not win the elections.
He did not explain in what capacity he was at that event, which lasted about forty minutes, and to which SNS members and sympathizers from different countries were brought. If he was like the president, then I guess all citizens can be in the public space; if he was a member of SNS, then it should have been clearly emphasized, but also explained when his function as the president of all citizens ends and his role as a promoter of a political party begins.
It is understood, as in previous cases, that explanation was missing, so the routine attacks on all those who are not with the regime and the complete and irrefutable equalization of the state, Vučić and the party continued.
photo: nenad mihajlović / tanjugNOT FORGOTTEN: Delivering mail to victims under a canopy
DOES VUCIC DARE TO GO TO NOVI SAD?
In such circumstances, the dissolution of the Assembly is expected after the session, so that Vučić formally calls for elections based on the reasoned proposal of the Government of Serbia. If he decides to schedule the elections for October 25, the deadline for calling them is September 10, so we won't have to wait long to see if his latest "promise" is more convincing than earlier announcements.
Before that happens, SNS and Vučić are calling for their meeting in Novi Sad on Friday, September 4. This announcement, which is not the first of its kind, caused reactions from the Novi Sad Choirs who said that he was not welcome there. All those who participated in the protests from November and December 2024 are constantly telling Vučić that he cannot come to Novi Sad. And that's a position to consider.
If Vučić is the president of the country, it would be normal for him to be able to visit every place in Serbia and that should not be questioned. However, the very fact that he does not act as the president of the country, but as the leader of the group that took over the country, gives an argument to those who would "ban" him from visiting certain places.
As is known, Vučić diligently conducts public opinion research, has various focus groups and certainly knows very well what the mood of the majority of Serbian citizens is and what the dominant trends are. However, even if Novi Sad or any other place is convincingly against him, that should not be a reason to ban him from visiting or to tell him that he must not come there. He is still a legitimate participant in the political life of Serbia. If someone is already calling for elections, then it is problematic to insist that it is impossible for him to appear wherever the voters are - it is a standard of democratic practice that should not even be discussed.
The assessments of numerous sociologists and analysts are that Vučić has managed to divide Serbian society, to intensify antagonisms to the extent that even such things are heard in public discourse.
As in other situations, when the regime sees that the opponent is insisting on something, it then goes into higher gear: so for Novi Sad, and before that for Užice. Loyalists are mobilizing with the message "Are we going to allow people like this to stop us from doing anything!?"
photo: ognjen stevanović / fonetDOMINANT POLITICAL FORCE: Student movement
LEADER'S MASTER PLAN
As in his "regional policy", Vučić is loading the cannons and calling for dialogue. He will not deviate from that path. On the contrary, as autumn progresses, it will intensify. It seems that he himself is "looking for a fight in the street" because that is somehow better for him than "touring the base" when he has to listen to the lamentations of his members and voters because of unfulfilled promises in the last 15 years.
It seems that he is now convinced that a billion in the pockets of citizens - of which 200 million will be returned to the budget through VAT, and inflation will raise the GDP - mixed with strong nationalist rhetoric, and spiced up by his omnipresence in all media, necessarily leads to victory in the elections, maybe not with a large majority, but at least enough to win 126 deputies in the parliament.
For that project, not only the entire Government of Serbia, but all the employees of the ministries, who long ago received their "tasks" when it comes to the elections, were engaged, all the services, all the police and militia, all the listening centers were involved, the pressure was "turned on the troika" - the apparatus is consolidating before a decisive political battle in which it is not only necessary to win, but it should be done so that on the other side for a long time only empty space remains, that the people who thought there was hope for change give up such an idea and come to terms with the fact that Vučić will go towards the third decade of his rule.
NOW OR NEVER WRONG SETTING
Those who are "on the other side", apart from cheering from place to place, organize guerilla actions, like a group in Kragujevac that defends the "Students are winning" banner on a bridge for the third week and night, waiting for the start of the race to be formally marked, for the student movement to reveal its plan and to start the campaign at full speed. With one or three lists, you stand somehow at the starting position while the government runs around, collects what it can, crashes, holds the gun for the start and the stopwatch to measure the time.
The students still do not advertise in connection with the campaign, which is in line with the previous actions - they do not talk in vain, they wait for something to be made official, when the society has already failed to fight for early elections.
They fell into the Udba-information war that the regime is waging against them, and the question is what kind of scars will they get out of that war with. In the process of "consolidation of ranks" - loyalty of institutions - from one moment Vučić included everyone in the fight against this group, and in recent weeks the results of "that work" can be seen on the TV stations under his control.
Students were followed, eavesdropped, filmed, it was not about "being drilled" - police-military tactics were used to deal with the "invisible enemy". The regime, aware that senseless accusations of overthrowing the constitutional order cannot pass, applied tactics of stalking, monitoring, intimidation and public smearing in the desire to make Serbia, in the political sense, a scorched country. What Vučić is doing now leaves no possibility for us to believe that, if a change happens, he and his loyalists could get involved in the political life of Serbia tomorrow - and that is largely his choice.
If, after the collapse of the opposition in the summer of 2024, it seemed that because of the EU, he would have to invent a new opposition, protests in 2024/25. forced him to give up on that idea: now he acts like a person who only cares about the moment of the election in which he will declare a convincing victory, once again, and thus bury all those who oppose him, because they too have put themselves in a "now or never" situation.
And that's why, as well as other things that the student rebellion revealed to the citizens of Serbia about them, they are waiting to hear that final date: today in Serbia it looks like the date in sci-fi movies when they say that a meteor will hit our planet, the date after which there may be no more life.
To the writer of these lines, such a sentiment seems excessive, even if it is served to raise interest in the elections. The past 35 years have taught us that decisive elections and battles are talked about too often in Serbia, and that in history there were really few of them and that they rarely happen.
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