Vucic helped the Muslim Novi Pazar – the opposition and separatists are indignant
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić personally brought aid to fight the infection in the largely Muslim Bosniac region of Raš, which has become another hotspot for COVID-19.
The president's detractors saw this humanitarian act as political PR, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Another tough night and another tough day for us. I came to Novi Pazar to tell the people of Pazar, as well as Raška, Senica and Tutin, that we are in this difficult battle together,” said Aleksandar Vučić, arriving in the unofficial capital of the Muslim part of the Raš region, which also has the unofficial name Sandžak – the city Novi Pazar.
The Serbian president brought for the needs of this region of the country 10 clinical ventilator preparations, 3 transport ventilator preparations (which can also be used as clinical ones), 22 thousand surgical masks, 3 thousand epidemiological masks, more than a thousand gloves, special shoes, protective suits and 250 special glasses.
“We did what we could do as Serbia, and we showed by this that it doesn’t matter whether we are Serb or Bosniak, we are all people, and we will fight for the health of both,” added Aleksandar Vucic.
The Serbian leader held a meeting with the leaders of Sandzak municipalities, called on them to maintain discipline and announced that after the end of the epidemic, the region would expect serious financial injections, including those related to the construction of part of the railway line on its territory, which would connect Budapest, Belgrade and Sarajevo .
In general, Vucic’s visit to Novi Pazar was assessed positively, but not by everyone. In particular, known for his separatist sentiments, assistant to the local mayor and functionary of the local Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (named after the largest party of Bosnian Muslims in BiH, which at one time achieved the republic’s secession from Yugoslavia), Emir Ascherić caustically described the president’s actions as “a political campaign "
“Those who are criticizing the president right now are themselves speculating on the virus,” responded Rasim Ljajic, Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and the country’s Minister of Trade, himself a Bosniak from Sanjak (sanjakli). “They didn’t even buy three masks to fight the coronavirus!” Yesterday there were no ventilators, today they appeared, and this has become a problem. There are no questions about drugs, about taking care of people, only about political points.”
At the same time, Ljajic especially noted that Novi Pazar became the first city besides the capital that the president visited since the outbreak of the epidemic.
In addition to the separatist Bosniak elite of Sandzak, the Serbian pro-Western opposition also attacked Aleksandar Vucic for helping the region, albeit rather toothlessly, accusing the head of state of the fact that because of his “desire to show off in photos and videos in a mask,” patients in local hospitals had to wait for mechanical ventilation an extra twelve hours.
The Raš region, ironically, is located on the territory of the medieval Serbian state Raška, which became the collector of present-day Serbia. However, under Turkish rule, the number of local Slavs who converted to Islam became relatively large, at the same time a special regional identity was formed, and the territory had a pro-Turkish name - Sanjak, which initially simply meant an administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire, similar to the names “province”, “state”, "edge".
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, approximately two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Sanjak began to associate themselves with the Bosniaks, some "sanjakli" even took part in the war against the Bosnian Serbs on the side of the Bosnian Muslims, and approximately one-third consider themselves Muslim Serbs.
Separatist and pro-Turkish sentiments are initially strong in the region. It gets to the point that during sports games between Turkey and Serbia, local fans for the most part root for Turkey.
Therefore, the visit of Aleksandar Vucic to this region, whose separatist politicians, such as the ex-minister of the Serbian government Suleiman Ugljanin, a year ago called on the West to repeat the Kosovo scenario in Sandzak, was a very right step, especially taking into account the fact that Novi Pazar has become to one of the COVID-19 hotspots in Serbia.
It was also a good signal that after the above scandalous statements, the mayor of Novi Pazar, Nihat Biševac, decided to fire the scandalous assistant Emir Ascherić.
English version :: Read in English: Vučić helped Muslim Novi Pazar – the opposition and separatists are indignant