Cherries, strawberries and pitting

The week in which extraordinary local elections were held in Zaječar and Kosjerić has ended. At the time of writing, we do not have the official results yet, but, by all accounts, the government managed to win a minimal victory with a large number of recorded irregularities at the polling stations. What follows, in all probability, is a new counting of votes, consideration of objections and a game of nerves with the government, which is clearly not ready to admit defeat even at the level of the local community. In the previous few weeks, SNS emissaries circulated around Kosjerić and around Zaječar, distributing packages to potential voters, almost all ministers promised and brought help, allegedly from live cattle to wood stoves.

On all channels with a national frequency, you could see pre-election spots in the news blocks in which the same few senior citizens praised the successes of Aleksandar Vučić. Kosjerić and Zaječar received hours of footage from drones, and not a single word was mentioned about the fact that there were opposition lists in these two cities. This is the first election in which the opposition did not get literally a minute of television time to present itself to the voters. Maybe someone saw the opposition candidates in a show on RTS, but I admit, I didn't.

In the meantime, the public was concerned with the attack on a student who says he wants to study, especially since his colleagues chased him from a cafe in the Student City. Of course, all violence is to be condemned, but all television stations under the control of the authorities reported in detail about his admission to the Emergency Center.

The police detained 18 students by raiding the rooms of the student dormitories, the accusations sounded terrifying, but they were all released the next day. Even a journalist from the Zoomer portal was arrested, and the most bizarre detail is the court decision prohibiting him from approaching Pavlović within 50 meters. It's not even the craziest thing, because Pionirski Park is listed as Pavlović's place of residence. Ana Brnabić hugged his mother, she could not resist that instinct. That is why the President of Serbia had three completely different addresses to the public in two days.

After the attack on Pavlović, the slogan "Better children than Nazis" was launched, and at the same time it materialized in the form of a banner in front of the Assembly. One MP of the opposition tried to cut this offensive banner with a penknife, but it was interpreted as an attack on the life and integrity of the printed poster registered at the address in front of the Assembly and unsung violence against voting materials. Let's remember, the beating of students in Novi Sad was justified in a similar way, when a girl's jaw was broken. Those beaters from the SNS are described as angels protecting party premises and property from offensive "blockade" stickers.

On Sunday evening, both the opposition and the government declared victory in the local elections. A little later, actually a little later, Vučić addressed the public in a rather resigned tone, while Ana Brnabić and Miloš Vučević were sitting two meters to the left and right of him. At the first moment, I thought that the social distance from the time of covid-19 had been returned. The president of all the citizens of Serbia declared victory, and he pushed political opponents into the so-called indefinite gender. "Everyone who lives in Kosjerić voted against us." He put himself in the plural, and "enemies" are "that", which in our language marks something otherworldly, unspoken, but also not necessarily human.

In such an unpleasant atmosphere, where you should be happy that you poured millions into the campaign, in order to defeat the students who ran the campaign without a budget and media, with only 51 votes, despite all the irregularities, nothing sounds funny there. Neither the prank with Đuk who lost weight, nor the story about the rattling air conditioner in the headquarters of the largest party in Serbia was funny. In the opposition headquarters, the air conditioners are not humming, how does the president know that, and only the BIA can confirm this if it has recordings of meetings with the air conditioners on.

Of the irregularities during the elections, the contribution of FDU students, who were welcomed by Gvozden Nikolić from "Glasa Zapadna Srbije" in a village near Kosjerić, certainly wins. A group of observers, students from Belgrade, headed towards the house where vote buying was allegedly taking place, but on the way they were met by a trailer with beehives and released bees, so they all gave up. In my time, the host would go out into the courtyard with a rifle or shoot the dogs.

This recording actually masks the image of the meeting of the peasants with the students who visited them in the villages in the municipality of Kosjerić with the bardkalija, which is traditionally used to celebrate in our country. This custom was introduced as a "student flask" and gave excellent results. This is confirmed by the record turnout in Kosjerić, which exceeded 80%, which is a lesson in democracy for all of Serbia.

In the third address to the public, the President sat on the terrace, which he likes the most, because he is above the people, and on the terrace, it was as if he had won a gold medal at the Olympics. In front of him are two roads, symbolically represented by a bowl of strawberries and a bowl of cherries. Cherries up, strawberries down, manure on the strawberries, worms in the cherries, how to reconcile strawberries and cherries, how to avoid decay, how to create a dialogue in the country that the President divided and continues to divide, are the strawberries from Albania, are they well washed, is the President not going to step down from power, as they say - who is the child from the cherry, or will he spit stones at all of us from above.