Government in Serbia reacts to protests by restarting the fight against corruption, "the largest and unprecedented so far". Interlocutors DW they assess that it is "the most ordinary political campaign, reminiscent of actions in a supermarket".
The corrupt actions that led to the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad and the accompanying protests put the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, in a position where he had to offer the public some kind of action in order to calm tensions. As innumerable times before, the fight against corruption was announced again, but this time "the biggest and unprecedented so far". The prosecutor's office was activated, individual arrests began, but after a few weeks the public is not convinced that this is something more than an ordinary political show.
It started with relatively well-known names, such as, for example, the former director of Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) Milorad Grcic or the controversial SNS-businessman Aleksandar Papić, but this was followed by completely random arrests of completely anonymous people, who were individually accused of embezzlement ranging from 25.000 to one million euros.
When it comes to embezzlement in EPS and Grcic, he was accused of embezzlement of one million euros, which became the subject of humorous comments: the extent of the damage done in that company is estimated at hundreds of millions of euros, and it is said that one million euros is an embezzlement that takes place until the lunch break of a working day.
Like supermarket promotions
It is difficult to establish all the nuances of internal relations within the SNS, but it was also noticed that the fight against corruption was used for intra-party confrontations, because some were close to the former Minister of the Army and Police, Nebojša Stefanović, who is currently politically shunned because he did not pass the test of loyalty to the President of Serbia. In any case, the impression is that the first and leading echelons of government, where the largest circulation of money is, remained beyond the reach of the thunderous fight against corruption.
Lawyer Božo Prelevic assesses that "this is the most ordinary political campaign, reminiscent of actions in a supermarket that last for 15 days, and then again as before. That should not be the way the police and prosecutors work. "All this seems like an attempt by Vučić to say that the state is working, the institutions are working, everything is fine, so stop the protests," Prelevic told DW.
Who tied the hands of the prosecution?
The classic method of spinning when you find yourself in a problem, observes Zoran Stojiljković, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, and adds "how this all looks like damage control and an attempt to find something that should pretend to be a radical fight against corruption." We can see it from the arrested people, who are attributed certain corrupt acts, but it is also visible that there is no one from the top of what we call endemic and systemic corruption," Stojiljković told DW.
As part of the announced action, Aleksandar Vučić announced "the prosecution's hands are free", probably not realizing that in this way he implicitly admitted that the prosecution's hands are tied and that it only works on political instructions. As Božo Prelevic says, "this is also visible from the announcements we had from the top of the government, which literally state from which day to which arrests will be made."
"I think that we will not see any epilogue of all those processes and that they will end with some kind of settlements." There is no honesty here and this is just proof that the students are right. Because when you say you have a free hand, it means that you are meddling in things that you are not responsible for. No one in a normal country would think of saying that, and that is why we are forced to demand the work of institutions on the street," Prelevic believes.
Arrests on the margins
Such statements tell us that "you can sacrifice some people close to you without it leading to an even more serious social and political crisis," emphasizes Zoran Stojiljković.
"That manner is persistently repeated, because the government is aware that the way they came to power was precisely the fight against corruption." This means that, as they came to power, they can also leave power because of the same problem of corruption. What we are witnessing now are attempts and attempts to postpone it in some way and to somehow satisfy the public in Serbia with these arrests on the margins," Stojiljković points out.
Arrest ten - save ninety
If you look at the now multi-year revelations of hidden communications of the top of the government with organized crime, and the fact that no person from the intercepted conversations has been arrested, it is clear, as assessed, that this is a very selective fight against corruption.
In the words of Božo Prelevic, this shows "that those who are supposed to fight crime have close associates in strong ties with drug dealers, and that now we have a situation where we give those whose hands are freed ten people that we can arrest, in order to save the other ninety", Prelevic points out.
Serbia blocked because of Vučić
Complete SNS power is maintained through closed media, Prelevic continues and says that "the purpose of the government itself is exclusively corruption and greed." At the same time, we have a constant exchange of theses that Serbia is blocked because of students. That is not true, because it was blocked precisely because of Aleksandar Vučić and the metastasis of his power, in which nothing works according to the Constitution and the law," our interlocutor assesses.
If you look back, you get the impression that corruption is not a particular problem for the voters of the ruling party, because none of the numerous affairs had a significant impact on their rating. Zoran Stojiljković believes that it is "an accurate assessment in a more peaceful time, but when we are faced with the clear and tragic consequences of corruption, as in Novi Sad, and you see that corruption really kills, then it is clear to you that things have gone too far." And when it starts to cause this kind of reaction, then corruption reappears as one of the three key problems of every society," concludes Stojiljković for DW.
