In all analyzes of what has been happening in recent months in Serbia, it is repeated that the whole of Serbia stood up and spoke out social movements and protests even in places that were either completely forgotten or completely controlled by the ruling regime. If until a few weeks ago it was only valid Aleksandar Vučić knows the names of every village and populated place in Serbia, thanks to the student rebellion and blockades, now most of the residents know about almost every place - someone rebelled there, stopped to pay their respects or blocked an intersection commemorating the victims of the accident in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024.
This political geography, which has conquered the entire country and spread among the people, is beginning to change the perception of residents towards participants in political life. No one remembers when Aleksandar Vučić waved his rating - in the last few months he only talks about it and repeats that he has "undoubted legitimacy" because Serbia twice voted for him in the presidential elections.
I AM ON THE GROUND
Now it happened that he barely managed to find a place where he could hold his rally, that is, some urban area where he could bring hundreds of buses, primarily from the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then with people he literally "could catch" around Serbia and gather them on the square in front of the sports hall in Sremska Mitrovica - a city that has not remembered such a siege since the Roman emperors for which it is famous in history. And even there he was not welcome as the residents of this town told him the day before the counter rally, as well as the day after when they walked with fellow citizens from Ruma to their town to show Urbi et orbi that "yesterday" had nothing to do with them and their city.
And while Serbia gathered and met in Kragujevac at "Meetings" organized by students of Serbian universities, in Sremska Mitrovica Vučić met his current political truth - he exhausted all he could when it came to public gatherings and mass events. With the message that he will defeat the "colored revolution" in the whole world, he additionally confirmed the position of those who believe that he no longer even knows what he is talking about when he appears in front of the crowd.
As never before in his career, except perhaps in the first few years after October 5, Vučić found himself on the political backwater, quite alone and without new ideas on how to turn the current situation to his advantage and once again act as the absolute leader of all Serbs. Two days before going to Mitrovica for the ordered counter-rally, he was visiting Milorad Dodik, where the two of them celebrated the Statehood Day of Serbia and Republika Srpska together. In the most difficult moments of his recent political career, Vučić reached out to Dodik - not so much that he trusts him, but that they sometimes understand each other's businesses and that, unfortunately, Dodik is also an authority for the majority of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The President of the RS thus waited to host another colleague from Serbia in moments when this one is not doing well on home soil. Even before that, Dodik knew how to play the "Vašar bear", he goes wherever he is called in Serbia, talks or takes pictures, from shooting games in the Pasuljanski meadows to dinner parties in Villa Bokeljka; he also knew how to put up with Vučić sending his thugs to him during the elections. In short, he welcomed Vučić as Boris Tadic in the winter of 2012, which is an interesting coincidence.
The then president of Serbia, faced with the upcoming elections and the fact that clean-shaven Chetniks in the guise of progressives are threatening him with taking power, sought help in the patriotic embrace of his brothers from Republika Srpska. He went to the real "Statehood Day" of this part of BiH, on January 9, and from there he sent us a message that his assassination was planned. Many have forgotten the case from the "Borik" hall and what followed later, but the result in the spring was such that Tadić and the Democrats were no longer in power.
Vučić sent a message from Bosnia about the unity of the Serbian people and hinted that he might be able to run in the elections in Bosnia if he registered at the address of Vučić's family home in the village of Čipuljić near Bugojno. He is so convinced that he is dominant in the political field that no one would be surprised if he "pulled such a move", and many from Serbia would encourage him to return to his homeland and implement his political ideas and plans there for the national unification of all Serbs, and to take revenge on the Croats for everything they did during the NDH and later in the 1991-1995 war.
NO IDEAS
It is obvious that Vučić is running out of ideas and that is the common assessment of everyone who follows Serbian political life in recent months. The only novelty brought by 2025 is that now he appears and advertises literally every day, and if it happens by chance like two weeks ago that he did not announce or appear for a whole day, then the media under his control make "news" about why he did not appear or announce.
It has already been explained and repeated that he has no good weapon against the student, as no autocrat anywhere in the world would have. He must not go head-on against student blockades, he must not engage in open violence, especially now that cameras have arrived from all over the world recording the mass and heroic actions of Serbian students and reporting live from events that they organize or inspire.
His attempts at a double game - in the morning I trample you, in the afternoon I pet you - did not bring results: the student blockade entered all parts of society, all focus groups, the common people are happy and amazed by what their children are doing, the way they are organized and the size of what they are ready to sacrifice for their cause. Although it is difficult for him to hold back, and he says that the student march on Kragujevac "reminds him of what Mussolini did" - that is, that he equates the students of Serbia with fascists - Vučić is sticking to what his PR advisors told him. And that is not to speak badly about the students and to try to get closer to them through their real political opponents.
Unfortunately for him, the opposition has been lying low like a bandit, as if it has been at the slaughterhouse all winter and is probably waiting for the mountain to turn green to start some action. In such circumstances, Vučić has a narrowed maneuver for a regular repertoire of publicly uttered insults, which is one of his constant and strongest tools in public communication. Simply put: he has no one to attack, so he uses the templates of the Serbian part Udbe: there are forces working to break up Serbia, destroy Serbia, wish us the worst, send spies and the like and everything from that Udba communication manual for dictators.
When that fails, and it always fails obviously because it does not bring about the maintenance of ratings and the valid mobilization of the necessary voters, Vučić embarks on what Thomas Mann wrote about Adolf Hitler in 1933: "He doesn't talk, he gives speeches, moans like a grandmother about his vulnerability, threatens suicide. He gathered around him the worst petty-bourgeois scum who knows that he can only profit in such a system".
NO RETURN
In addition, things are not looking good on the external front even though China and Russia and America and the EU seem to be supporting him at the same time. The Americans demand the application of sanctions against Gazprom, the Russians demand that it not be applied, and the EU demands that a reform agenda be implemented in order to pay it the promised hundreds of millions of euros in donations. Vučić stayed in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina this year, he did not go to Munich for probably the most significant Security Conference in this decade. It is as if he is running out of courage and it seems to him that if he leaves Serbia, the place he currently has will no longer be waiting for him.
One of Vučić's last maneuvers was the expectation that the two TV stations that particularly annoy and disturb him would disband: TV N1 and TV Nova S. But, as we can see, that didn't happen either despite the sale of the SBB company. Vučić has already spent billions of euros of public money through the activities of Telekom Srbija and where did that lead him: TV N1 was by far the most watched station in the past weeks, more watched than those with national coverage, because people in Serbia are really interested in what is happening in Serbia, and not what Vučić would like to tell them is happening.
In sum, the effects of his actions and spin politics are being crowned before our eyes day by day. Whether the "thing" will completely fall apart soon or in the coming months, we will see, but the change has already happened.
"In the forests and mountains of our proud country" the people woke up on the wings of what the students and pupils and their teachers started. There is no one left who can say: everything will go back to the way it was. The old is gone, and what the new will be will depend on the speed and manner of changes. We have seen from history that any delay does not necessarily mean a better solution to the outcome. On the contrary.
