And after Ken, Ken

If you ask the people of Palanca how they live, you will often hear diametrically opposite answers - some say that it is good, they got roads, buildings are springing up around the city, and others see corruption in all of this, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) is present in all institutions and that for everything you need to "know someone who by some miracle is a member of the SNS".

The city was once known for its industry and the "Goša" factory, today there is almost no industry. Of the old big companies, "Palanački kiseljak" still fills water and produces Kokta, and a few years ago the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, cut the ribbon at the opening of the Korean factory "Kyungshin Cable", which produces battery parts for electric vehicles. Part of Palančan works in this company, the remaining parts of "Goša", in the water and juice factory, companies that have been privatized in the meantime. Locals also fill positions in public services, but private companies, boutiques, pharmacies, bakeries, betting shops, cafes are also among the most numerous employers.

Apart from Kokta and "Goša", Palanka is also known for the record temperature recorded in Serbia since measurements have been made, but also for some political flyovers.

photo: Marko Rupena

For a number of years, Smederevska Palanka - a municipality in central Serbia, on the edge of Šumadija - was among the few local self-governments in which the government was in opposition to the one that ruled at the republic level. In short, DS was in power in Smederevska Palanka from 2008 to 2016, and Radoslav Milojičić was first assistant to the mayor from 2008 to 2012, and then president from 2012 to 2016.

At that time, the Serbian Progressive Party had already ruled most of the local self-governments in Serbia, and local politicians from Palanica often boasted that this was not the case with them. If you ask the Palancans, that fact didn't do them much good. The municipal account was blocked for nine years due to a huge budget debt, at one point the city was in complete darkness for several months due to unpaid bills, so the street lights were not turned on, and water restrictions in the summer are a daily occurrence.

The transition did not leave a good mark on this place at the confluence of the Jasenica and Kubršnica rivers. In Palanka, industry has been used for decades. The "Goša" factory, whose workers, among other things, built the Belgrade Gazela bridge and which employed more than 7000 people in this town alone, was mostly closed at the beginning of this century. Thousands of people lost their jobs, and finding a job at that time in Palanka was not easy. If you ask the older people from Palanca, they will remember the heyday of "Goša" with a set, because, they say, their palanka flourished then too. Of the more than 10 factories that were in the "Goša" holding corporation, only two are operating today, with a significantly smaller production volume and with significantly fewer employees.

CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT

The year is 2016. SNS wins the local elections in Palanka, so Kena was no longer the president of the municipality. A few years later, he went from being a local to a deputy in the republican parliament. Ken and his local political opponents had a lot to say about each other. On one occasion in the Serbian Parliament, while Milojičić was still a member of the DS, Vučić told him how much he had spent in a tavern while he was the president of the Municipality of Smederevska Palanka. Thus he counted "165 Tuborg beers, 133 Heineken, 65 Lav beers and 35 coffees."

Ken retaliated by criticizing in the discussion during the election of the new government in 2016, the representative of the SNS government, Aleksandar Vučić, for the attitude of the SNS authorities towards local self-rights, stating that cities led by SNS cadres receive much more money than cities where someone else is in power.

After Kena, the progressive government in Palanka lasted for almost nine full years. In the style of paving Serbia, Palanka also got roads, Culture Square, a renovated main street and hospital and municipal self-government buildings. Lidl arrived last year, and Pepko opened recently. In the last few years, more residential buildings have been built, and the price per square meter has risen to around 1000 euros in the city center. In this place a few years ago, square footage prices were half as much.

Apparently, Palanka got everything from the progressives, but in the end the party also got a former opponent: in 2023, Ken was on the 46th place of the list "Aleksandar Vučić - Serbia must not stand still" and became a member of the Serbian Parliament, and in June 2024 he officially became a member of the SNS. At the end of September of that year, Radoslav Milojičić Kena declared that Aleksandar Vučić is the best statesman in the history of Serbia. So Kena and the local authorities found themselves on the same page again. In Palanka, SNS together with Ken is still in power.

PALANKA (NI)SHE WENT UP

It may seem to someone who comes here for the first time that Palanka has something to offer. And it's true, it would have if the Palanački kiseljak spa, Mikulja forest and Kudreč lake were not neglected. And the reality of the locals is often different.

Part of them, dissatisfied with the system and the happenings in the country, took to the streets last Saturday, blocked the intersection for 15 minutes and called on everyone to get up and go to the streets. The main streets in Smedrevska Palanka are usually full of passers-by on Saturdays. The numerous cafes along the pedestrian zone are also full. Saturday is also the market day in this place, but Saturday January 25 was also a day of protest in the city.

Several hundred locals gathered in the city square near the fountain in support of the students who have been protesting for more than two months demanding responsibility for the victims of the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad. In the call to the protest, it was written that it was also dedicated to supporting music school teachers.

Carrying the banners "You are not in charge", "Our solidarity is the strongest response to injustice", "I want life, a better life", "Silence is not medicine, struggle is our therapy", red gloves and whistles, the gathered headed along the blocked road a few hundred meters further to the intersection of Vuk Karadzic Street and Heroes' Square. They stopped there, stopping the traffic for 15 minutes in silence, paying tribute to the victims of the demolition of the canopy in Novi Sad.

Zoran Maričić was among those gathered because, as he says, he was fed up with living "in a time where there is no system, where one man rules, one man decides, where the people have no voice, where people die because of gossip".

The city where he lives has not risen in the majority, and he says that this is because many depend on the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and are afraid of not being seen at the rally.

"I get private messages from people who tell me that they are not allowed to go to protests because of their children. It motivates me even more to be here and to hope that maybe in the elections, where no one is watching, they will vote differently. Palanka is a breeding ground for progressives, the people are poor and miserable, the industry is weak, many are dependent on the money from the helicopter that is given through various aid, always experienced in blue vests with insignia, with the glorification of Aleksandar Vučić. Those people are addicted, they must not appear at these protests, they must not react," Maričić told "Vreme".

According to a free estimate, there were between 200 and 300 people at this gathering. The day before, 15 buses from Smederevska Palanka went to Jagodina for a rally organized by Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party.

Smedrevska Palanka used to be among the few municipalities in which the Democratic Party was in power, although at the republican level the schedule was different. Later, the political situation changed, but the people of Palanca say at this gathering that they are not living well.

Bad life and the state of the country are the reasons for going out on the streets, say the interlocutors of "Vremena".

"I am here because we are not doing well in this country, corruption has crossed all the limits of normality, if there can be any normality in corruption at all, because nothing is known, nothing is transparent, because we are angry at the whole system, the hidden affairs, it is unnecessary to list them, but from Jovanjica, through two minutes of Doljevac, to the canopy. That was definitely the tipping point. Huge dissatisfaction, we all feel it. Life in Palanka is bad, for everything you have to know someone who by some miracle is a member of SNS", Nikola Paunović, one of the gathered, told Vreme.

This was a gathering of support for the students and their demands, but also for the teachers of the "Božidar Trudić" Primary Music School, who were the only ones to suspend classes out of the eight primary and secondary schools in Palanka. A walk, a fifteen-minute silence and a continuation of the walk to the music school, and then to the pedestrian zone in the city center and the premises of the Serbian Progressive Party. There, the gathered left three half-burnt candles, the ones for the cemetery, one egg box and banners. This was the second gathering in Palanka since gatherings began across the country. A new gathering has been announced for Saturday, February 1.

The organizers expect that the rest of their fellow citizens will also dare to stand up.