Serbia Turns Against Vucic
Serbs participated in weekly protests rituals, in January 2019, that involved resistance against
President Aleksandar Vucic, who came
into power in 2012, after a twelve-year spell in the opposition.
Every Saturday, Serbs gathered
at Republic Square at Belgrade, to counter ongoing assault on media freedoms,
participative democracy and political violence. With neighbouring Albania and
Montenegro, also volatile, Serbia's protests have been called as the beginning
of a ‘Balkan Spring’. These protests had actually escalated in December 2018,
and it might give emergence to a new global movement from Europe.
In March 2019, protests had escalated as
riots spread to several neighbouring cities, including second largest city Novi
Sad. However, protests outside Belgrade are smaller in comparison. This crescendo,
however, has helped several angry people and opposition leader to barge into
the headquarters of Radio Television Serbia. Several
thousand protesters remained in front of the building as activist’s chanted “Vucic thief”, in the corridors
of the building. The state police eventually
controlled these riots by using pepper sprays, and bringing a truck near the
building.
Many in the crowds, of around seven thousand
five hundred people, also whistled ‘He’s finished.’ It was a similar slogan
used during the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic,
in October 2000. Bosko Obradovic, leader of far-right political party, Dveri,
has even gone further ahead and accused Vucic of being ready to accept Kosovo’s
independence.
As per an Oped written by
Elis Gjevori: ‘In the Balkans, politics
operates much like a revolving-door where politicians go out one end and come
back in from the other generating a crisis of credibility. Widespread cynicism
towards politicians who promise change but once in power more often than not
emulate their predecessors is difficult to overcome.’
According to Associated Press, Vucic rejected
to bow down to their demands – even if there were ‘five million people’ on the
streets. He labelled the opposition leaders as ‘fascists’, ‘hooligans’ and
‘thieves’, and vowed to take a response, within Serbia’s democratic framework.
His current plan seems to end the conflict with Kosovo, finding ways to comply
with IMF’s austerity demands, and devising a strategy to enter European Union.
In November 2018, there was a beating of Borko
Stefanovic, a member of Serbian Left Party in the opposition, in the southern
city of Krusevac, where he was left injured, and hospitalised, after being hit
by some blunt objects by angry rioters. Despite claiming to be an honest leftist,
he had his own share of wanton controversies. It included the mediation behind
the 2008 sale of state petroleum company Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), to
Russia’s Gazprom Neft. The deal had caused outrage for its tendering process
and the final sale price. The deal was seen in the category of such
privatisations, which led to the eventual economic downfall of former
Yugoslavia. Vucic had launched an investigation into this deal in 2014. After
the assault, Stefanovic believes that he was attacked because he had publicly spoken
against connections between political servants and criminal networks, and he
also alleged that there was corruption in awarding state contracts and in
dispersing state money.
Next day, his associate, Dragan Djilas told
the reporters that Vucic was himself behind the assault. The first
demonstration held in Krusevac went under the banner ‘Stop the Bloody Shirts’,
which had been organised by the Alliance for Serbia, an amalgam of political
parties, including the Serbian Left, spanning country’s political spectrum.
The protestors had also demanded a probe into
the politically motivated murder of Oliver
Ivanovic, a Kosovo Serb politician, in 2018, an outspoken Vucic critic, who
had been fiercely anti-government, particularly when it came to reprimanding
organised crime.
The Belgrade protests had happened, shortly
after, and were mostly organised by the students enrolled at the University of
Political Sciences. These recent protests are not the real testimony of Vucic’s
authoritarian rule, according to many observers.
When in
2017, he became the president, citizens took on a daily basis, for over two
months, but in May, the protests eventually died out. It also signifies that
these protests lacked grassroots initiatives, and a certain aimlessness
meant that there was no clearer path set for a victory against the state. Infact, he has been likened to an autocratic president, seen in Russia and Turkey before.
Many Serbs also had voted for Vucic, because they
could not find a good alternative. The list of candidates had included leaders,
former ombudsman Sasa Jankovic, who promised to build Serbia a coastline.
Despite being an ally of Russia, Serbia also
wants to be a member of European Union, under the current geopolitical context.
However, in an evaluation of the April 2017
presidential election, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
said: 'biased media coverage, an undue advantage of incumbency and a blurred
distinction between campaign and official activities undermined the level
playing field for contestants.'
Also, in a 2017 report, by
Transparency Serbia and the Centre for Investigative Journalism, there is
political control over security forces and the rule of law is undermined.
In the past, Vucic was Slobodan Milosevic’s
minister of information in the final days of the Yugoslav wars. He was given
powers to fine journalists who criticised the regime and banning unfriendly TV
networks. His ruling centre-right Serbian Progressive Party enjoys a
complete grip over Serbia’s government, judiciary, and security services. He
has imposed restrictions in the Serbian media, to such an extent, that
only a few media agencies have been brave enough to write about allegations of
corruption, cronyism, and voter intimidation, that have plagued governmental functions.
According to an Oped in Foreign Policy
written by Aleks Eror: ‘The entirety of the anti-Vucic ideological spectrum was
being represented—from student Marxists to Bosko Obradovic, the
ultranationalist leader of Dveri, a far-right opposition party of religious
conservatives—sometimes causing scuffles among the protesters. This highlights
the fragmented and impotent nature of the Serbian opposition, which is united
by its opposition to Vucic but unable to agree on much else.’
The president has blamed these protests on
Kosovo, possibly for a land swap, to resolve the dispute, with ethnic Albanians
and Muslims, as animosities, have risen since twenty years, after both countries fought a war.
If we go back into the history, much of the current far-right extremism, spreading global, was
given birth during the Balkan conflicts, of the 1990s, especially during the Bosnian
War. It also created a generation of Christian extremists, and nobody stopped
them, in doing all sorts of bad things in their home country.
Comments
Post a Comment
Advice from the Editor: Please refrain from slander, defamation or any kind of libel in the comments section.