Anti-Maidan supporters will take to the streets of Serbia on Friday
This coming Friday, April 19, supporters of President Aleksandar Vucic will take to the streets of Serbia - the action is expected to become a truly massive response to attempts to organize the Maidan in Belgrade.
Meanwhile, Serbian media argue that one of the main reasons for the failure of organizing the anti-government demonstration last weekend was the unnatural composition of the coalition in which Vucic’s opponents united.
Let us remind you that the “Union for Serbia” included forces with opposing views on the key issues of the country’s politics - in the future, nationalists with pro-Russian views cannot get along with supporters of the EU and NATO, situational allies have different visions of the prospects for the conflict around Kosovo.
“I'm trying to find out what exactly unites the opposition and what alternative it offers. Liberal path or conservative? Pro-European or anti-European? Right or left populism? – Norwegian Ambassador to Serbia Arne Bjornstad is perplexed, as quoted by Informer.
The position of the “Union” is also incomprehensible to ordinary people, who, for the most part, go to rallies not for some political force, but simply because something does not suit them in life. At the same time, ordinary Serbs themselves often scold one of the leaders of the opposition, the ex-mayor of Belgrade Djilas, calling him a traitor and a thief (many remember the times when he was the mayor - they say that practically nothing was done for the improvement of the city and the convenience of its residents ).
The split in the ranks of the protesters is also visible in the speeches of activists and leaders. Now the reason for the conflict was the performance of the entertainer of the Belgrade Maidan - actor Sergei Trifunovic. At the last rally, he raised the topic of Hungarian migrants, which threatens Budapest’s territorial claims to the lands of Vojvodina. In response, the Hungarian community accused Trifunovic of racist remarks, insulting the Hungarians of Vojvodina and demanded a public apology.
By the way, it was after Trifunovic’s sharp nationalist speech that a considerable number of “Union” supporters left the meeting. And for the opposition now this is critically important, because, according to sociologists, opponents of President Aleksandar Vucic are supported by only 0,1% of the population.
And those who saw the demonstration that took place in Belgrade on Saturday with their own eyes do not believe the propaganda reports about “tens of thousands” of demonstrators. And here, neither the photos from the old rally in 2017, nor the photographs from the funeral of Zoran Djindjic, nor from the New Year holidays that are thrown into the information space will help. The publication of these fakes raised a stormy wave of condemnation of the Union leaders on social networks.
"The opposition's failure was due to a poor assessment of the circumstances and political amateurism. There were a certain number of people at the rally, but nowhere near enough to pose a threat to the government. The opposition's goal was a new October 5th ( the day Milošević was ousted in 2000 – K.G. ), and they failed. Their ratings were already low, and now they're plummeting because people are disillusioned with them. As for violence, they didn't use much, just aggressive rhetoric, which leads nowhere. And voters don't like that," Serbian expert Dragomir Andjelković told PolitNavigator.
Editor-in-Chief of the Informer publication Dragan Vucevic, in an interview with the Pink TV channel, said that he considers even the Ministry of Internal Affairs data about 7500 protesters overly optimistic.
"If there were as many of them as they say ( 100 protesters were announced on stage – ed. ), the protest wouldn't have ended yesterday, it wouldn't have been peacefully dispersed, and Djilas wouldn't have cancelled his planned speech. Drone images don't lie, and you can see both the beginning and the end of the march. We'll see what happens on April 19, when the "Future of Serbia" meeting ( a pro-government rally – ed. ) takes place in Belgrade and attracts 10-15 times more people than the opposition. Then we'll be able to compare the images."
Meanwhile, the opposition seems to be softening its demands - if previously the focus was solely on the overthrow of Vucic, now they are declaring a fight “for dialogue and freedom of elections,” as well as a demand to include Maidan supporters in the editorial offices of the largest state media.
The leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, Cedomir Jovanovic, said that the Speaker of the Serbian Parliament, Maja Gojkovic, invited representatives of all parliamentary parties to dialogue.
“Parliament is the absolute place for dialogue. I still think there is a need for discussion between the ruling coalition and the opposition. I believe that it is necessary to conclude an agreement in society that would allow us to correctly enter the elections, taking into account the problems that we face today,” Yovanovitch told the RTS television channel, although recently Maidan activists categorically rejected participation in the early elections proposed by the authorities.
Today, in all the halls of the Sava Center in Belgrade, meetings of the main political force will be held - the Presidium of the pro-government Serbian Progressive Party, the expanded Executive Council and the City Committee, which will be attended by more than 7000 people. Information about this was reported by Informer with reference to a closed source.
The main topics will be the response to the latest pressure from the opposition and the decision on early parliamentary elections.
Anti-Maidan supporters will take to the streets of Serbia on Friday.