Three days after the event historical protest in Belgrade, the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić still deals with numbers. In a guest appearance on television, Pink explained that on Saturday (March 15) there were less than 107.000 people at the protest (which is the estimate of the MUP), but more than 88.000.
"The BIA made a mistake because it had an overlap in different terms people walking", said the president.
To support his theory, he explained: "What are they doing? Let's say in Kralja Milan, they put people on one side and on the other side, and when they stand, it's nothing. They all stand on the same sidewalk. However, they spread out on the street and then some walk to the right, and others walk to the left. That's what the agencies learn through the non-governmental sectors and through all the movements organized by these Popovics and other fraudsters. Some go left, others go left." to the right, and then they go back to the right. Why? Because when you're walking you take up five to eight times more space than when you're standing. In these weather conditions, you have one and a half people per square meter."
It seems that the president developed the whole theory of walking and counting citizens at a protest in moments when it is not clear whether a sound cannon was used in the crowd, as well as who did it.
But why is the president obsessed with numbers?
Aleksandar Gubaš from the Archives of Public Meetings told "Vreme" that Vučić's stories about how someone taught people how to line up on the street in order to make it look bigger are crazy in themselves, because who would normally do that, and the other thing has nothing to do with it, because there is certainly an accurate insight into how many people there were.
According to data from the Archive of Public Meetings, between 15 and 275.000 citizens attended the March 325.000 protest, with the possibility that the number was even higher.
He adds that it is natural that the gatherings at which they did the assessment had very different densities because they happen spontaneously and there is no need for anyone to stage the gathering, nor does it make too much sense because the number of people will certainly be counted.
"His need to add some quasi-scientific dimension to his completely random estimates of the number of attendees is a reflection of his insecurity," says the interlocutor of "Vremen".
"An unusual obsession with numbers"
Gubaš says that it is not unusual for the president to state the reduced numbers of participants in the protest. Simply, every ruler against whom certain events in society are directed tends to reduce or belittle their importance.
"What is unusual in Vučić's case is his obsession with numbers. He hires I don't know who, some phantom experts, he mentions some software that doesn't exist and refers to those findings as something that should blind our eyes and convince us that it is correct and exact," explains our interlocutor.
He adds that Vučić is primarily addressing those who trust him more than their own eyes and common sense. "It's the simplest, if he communicates with anyone who critically communicates what is served to him, everything he says would not make any sense. As it doesn't," says Gubaš.
Why are numbers important?
"Numbers are a measure of the importance of a topic in society. They are an indicator of the efficiency and credibility of the person organizing the meeting. They are also important from the point of view of public safety," Gubaš points out.
However, in cases such as the protests on March 15, in Nis, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, at Autokomanda... the interlocutor of "Vremena" concludes that it is so obvious what the mood of the people is that actually a specific number does not have any excessive significance because "everyone sees the emotion, energy, strength of the crowd and that general winning vibe".
