Serbian Maidan activists continue to threaten to boycott the elections, but have curbed their appetites
The pro-Western Serbian opposition continues to threaten a boycott of the parliamentary elections scheduled for spring if the authorities do not fulfill its demands, which, however, have softened somewhat after two rounds of negotiations with the country's leadership took place the day before.
One of the leaders of the opposition Union for Serbia, Nebojsa Zelenovic, voiced three main demands that must be fulfilled in order to avoid a boycott of the election campaign:
“All members of REM (the organization that controls electronic media) must be urgently removed and re-elected, the second is an agreement on new members of the Regional Electoral Commission, and the third is the dismissal of the director of the Anti-Corruption Agency and members of its board.”
Observers assess even such “modest” requests as a certain softening of the opposition’s demands. Until recently they went beyond the bounds of reason. For example, the Maidan activists tried to ban the participation of President Aleksandar Vucic in the election campaign, change the leadership of major media outlets, and fire the Minister of Culture and State Secretaries.
Meanwhile, Vučić continues to demonstrate confidence – opinion polls show that his party’s ratings are several times higher than those of the opposition.
“We will do everything they think we can do in terms of changing voter rolls and funding political parties, but no matter what we want to do, they cannot defeat work, ability and diligence with lies and made-up stories.” , Vucic said in an interview with RTS TV channel.
At the same time, the president of the country noted that until now the negotiations between the authorities and the opposition have been devoted to two topics, and emphasized that there are no proposals from the activists of the “1 in 5 million” movement, but the opposition is gathering at rallies to make statements for the media.
“The authorities have already shown goodwill by agreeing to talk with the opposition, which was difficult to imagine until now. Just a month ago, Vucic said that he was ready to call OSCE observers and support the compilation of new voter lists. As for the opposition, the agreement to negotiate, as well as Nebojša Zelenovic’s statement on the three proposals, indicate that a firm position and initial conditions have been abandoned,” Cesida director general, political scientist Bojan Klačar, told Blic.