Unjustified absence of the President of Serbia

Followed by television cameras, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, rushes to the opening of every kilometer of highway, railway, factory plant, school toilet. For this he will be remembered as Alexander the Omnipresent.

But when some tragedy which would make even a stone cry shakes Serbian society, stay away from the scene. In May of last year, Vučić stayed away from the scene of an unimaginable mass murder in Fishmonger in front of which the people of Belgrade shed tears and lit candles for days; it took him three weeks to visit Dubona and Malo Orasje.

Yesterday he didn't get in a helicopter and fly to Novi Sad, he didn't stand in front of the ruins from under which the survivors and corpses of 14 martyred people were being pulled out, to be with the mourners and the people of Novi Sad who were petrified of pain and disbelief; along with members of the rescue services and doctors.

And there was his place as the President of the Republic who, as he did not fail to point out in his must-see, was broadcast live on all televisions expressing condolences on Friday evening, elected directly, by an overwhelming majority of the votes of the citizens of Serbia.

Ivica Dačić immediately went to the Novi Sad railway station, where Goran Vesić and Miloš Vučević were also there.

Vučić had to go to Novi Sad

It is easy for Vučić to go to an organized crowd trained to applaud him. He should have the courage to expose himself to people shaken by pain, inclined to look for the culprits of the tragedy in the endemic corruption or the promotion of violence in the media loyal to him; to try to comfort them with his presence, to show how much he sympathizes with them.

Aleksandar Vučić is a politician who enjoys the greatest trust of the citizens of Serbia, and that is why, more than anyone else, yesterday, that Black Friday, immediately and without hesitation, there was a place for him among the people who gathered to light candles and express their grief in front of the deadly ruins.

After the mass death in Ribnikar, he subsequently proved his empathy with some kind of video in the dark night of him lighting a candle in the school building for the repose of the souls of the murdered children. Afterwards, he made an excuse that he actually did not want to put himself in the center of attention in a moment of collective pain.

It remains to be seen when he will appear at the scene of the Novi Sad tragedy. When he was to be celebrated at the opening of the reconstructed railway station, the basic order and the function entrusted to him dictated that he come and bow before the victims of the fatal omission of someone to whom the works were entrusted.

A question of courage

It is not difficult to understand why Vučić stayed away from Ribnikar and did not dare to immediately go to the mourners of Novi Sad. He does not dare to expose himself to any spontaneous encounter with the citizens of whom he is the president, let alone in a situation charged with a mixture of emotions in which suffering and initial shock turn into resentment.

There is too great a danger of whistles and cries of indignation that would dispel Vučić's self-awareness and the media's image of him as the most beloved son of the Serbian people who is attacked only by opposition mercenaries and Šolak's journalists on assignment.

A pattern can be seen in the fact that Vučić is exposed to the public only in carefully planned circumstances according to a pre-prepared scenario. For someone who constantly speaks in superlative terms about his own fearlessness, it raises the suspicion that he is a rather timid person, or someone who is unable to bear anything but approval and admiration.

And indeed, it would not be easy for him to go among the people of Novi Sad now. But the president of the country has a place among them at this moment of general mourning.