Serbia: Prime Minister has resigned, the President should be next!

Since our previous article, events in Serbia have accelerated rapidly. The government hoped that the holidays and extended school winter break would lead to fatigue in the movement, but the students, who are occupying their universities, did not allow the movement to dissipate. A large protest was held in front of the offices of the Serbian secret services on 11 January as a response to threats. They continued their strategy of 15 minute road blockades demanding justice for the 15 people murdered by the fall of the concrete canopy of the reconstructed railway station in Novi Sad.

[Originally published at crvenakritika.org]

Even before our previous article, there were numerous incidents in which cars drove through road blockades. Fortunately, most of these ended without significant injuries. President Aleksandar Vučić reacted to these incidents by condemning the demonstrators for illegally blocking the roads and saying that the drivers just wanted to go their own way. Such provocative rhetoric by the president legitimised this antisocial behaviour, and in mid-January resulted in a car ramming students in Belgrade, which caused one female student serious injuries.

Regime’s provocations cause ‘general strike’

It was clear to everyone that the president and his entire clique were the main culprits for creating this poisonous atmosphere. It took three weeks for the judiciary to carry out the first arrests related to the canopy fall. All the while, arrests of demonstrators have been carried out, with increased use of the secret services. Minister of Construction Goran Vesić – one of the people most culpable for the tragedy – was soon released from detention, along with other high-ranking officials. Meanwhile, instead of taking responsibility, the Serbian Progressive Party sent provocateurs to road blockades, who in some cases physically attacked the demonstrators. Yet the ruling party has blamed the demonstrators as the main source of the violence.

The female student is recovering well from her injuries, but that attack further enraged Serbians. The day after, students demonstrated in front of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), protesting their biased coverage of the protests. Some of the RTS workers, dissatisfied with the editorial policy of the public media service, brought a banner to the balcony that said they were on the side of the students.

The famous tennis player, Novak Đoković, dedicated his victory at the Australian Open to the injured student. At the same time, teachers decided to go on a full stoppage strike for a week, and lawyers decided to do the same. Parents also became significantly more involved in the protests, fearing for their children. The calls for a general strike intensified and the date was set for 24 January on social media – the same day that Aleksandar Vučić was to hold a counter-rally in Jagodina.

Although the event could not really be called a general strike – because there was no mass work stoppage – it definitely showed how much support the students and their demands have. Students were the main organisers of this ‘general strike’, and invited workers, trade unions and associations from their fields of study.

Numerous small businesses joined the work stoppage, and the workers of Elektroprivreda Srbije, the main state-owned power company, also struck. The IT sector showed its presence at the protests in an organised form. In Novi Sad, it seemed that at least 20,000 people had gathered, just like during the first protest on 5 November. The road blockades lasted much longer than usual. During the ‘general strike’, however, a new incident occurred in Belgrade, where another female student was seriously injured in a car ramming incident.

After the general strike, the protests spread to an incredible number of cities and they met with a widespread response. According to the report by the Archives of Public Meetings, protests took place in about 250 cities, towns and villages in total.

On the other side was Vučić, who organised a counter-rally in Jagodina. Protestors were brought in by bus, and many received money for attending. In the interviews conducted at the rally, many even supported the students and criticised corruption, in addition to supporting Vučić. The fact that Vučić organised the rally in a very small town of 35,000 inhabitants shows how weak he really is.

Prime Minister toppled

The students had long announced that they were planning a big action for the 27 January. This was a twenty-four-hour blockade of Autokomanda, a key traffic interchange in Belgrade. Farmers participated in the blockade with tractors. The response was huge. Extraordinary aerial shots capturing thousands of phone lights were posted on social media, the glow showing the size of the protest. Many joined the blockade, and the students came equipped to spend the night on the interchange. When they were done, they cleaned up after themselves.

During the night of the Autokomanda blockade, a new attack on students took place in Novi Sad. This time there was no doubt who the culprits were. Students were putting up stickers near the office of the Serbian Progressive Party when regime thugs came out of the offices and attacked the students with baseball bats, breaking the jaw of one female student.

The day after, the regime realised that it urgently had to put out the fire and make concessions, because without that, the mood could escalate quickly. Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and Mayor of Novi Sad Milan Đurić resigned, which the protests have been demanding since they began. The government was unofficially dissolved and the president is considering what to do in this situation. The resignations are yet to be confirmed in the assembly.

After that, on 1 February, three months after the tragedy in Novi Sad and coinciding with the city's birthday, a large blockade of three main bridges was organised. A significant number of students from Belgrade decided to march from Belgrade to Novi Sad, a distance of about 75 km, which took two days.

The Prime Minister's resignation came too late to calm the protests / Image: Serbian Army, Wikimedia Commons

In that march, Serbian citizens showed unprecedented solidarity with the movement. Everyone who met the students gave them something for their trip, cheered them on, or in some cases even bowed before them. After the mayor of Inđija locked students out of the place they were supposed to spend the night, they were forced to spend the night under the open sky. Some citizens responded by offering them places to stay. When they arrived in Novi Sad, their colleagues laid out a red carpet to welcome them, on which they exchanged flags of their cities and universities. 

The protest in Novi Sad shone with a sense of victory. While there were some reservations about whether the previous huge protest in Slavija had reached 100,000 people, it seems almost impossible that the Autokomanda blockade and the Sloboda Bridge blockade in Novi Sad did not involve that number. Solidarity protests with students in Serbia were organised in Banja Luka, Zagreb, and even Split, as well as in cities across Europe where the Serbian diaspora resides. 

In Novi Sad, the city government decided to cancel all official programmes celebrating the city's birthday, showing the real balance of power. When the protest in Novi Sad ended, taxi drivers from Belgrade travelled to Novi Sad and returned Belgrade students home for free. On that occasion, a taxi driver was filmed driving the students back to Belgrade shedding tears of joy, but it seemed that the whole of Serbia was shedding tears of solidarity, love and pride.

The Prime Minister's resignation came too late to calm the protests. After three students suffered serious physical injuries, after numerous protests, university occupations, attacks by regime thugs, arrests, lies, distortions and slanders, that concession is no longer enough. The main demand of students is the declassification of all documentation relating to the reconstruction of the railway station, which would reveal the depth of the regime's corruption. 

Although it is not stated in the demands, the absolute majority of the demonstrators no longer want to see Vučić as president. He has surrounded himself with a criminal and corrupt clique and pushed his officials to finish the projects in preparation for Serbia EXPO 2027, an exposition meant to attract foreign investment in which his gang would get a big cut of the profits. In addition to corruption, accelerating these deadlines played a key role in the fall of the canopy. And after it fell, he unambiguously took the side of his corrupt buddies.

His time is up, and that's exactly the energy that can be felt on the streets. The movement must make his resignation an official demand. There is no longer need to be shy about it. It's time to finish off the regime of Aleksandar Vučić.

Justice for the victims of corruption!

Finish the struggle to the end!

Down with Vučić!

Down with the Serbian Progressive Party!