"The biggest gathering ever held in Serbia, where people will come either to liberate Serbia, or to show how it is possible to gather in a normal way."
This is how Aleksandar Vučić announced the counter-rally of the progressives for March 28, right before it took place of the student protest on March 15, which, it will turn out, was really the biggest gathering that Serbia can remember.
Even though Vučić told TV Informer at the time that the gathering will show how people can gather without threatening anyone, and without putting anyone away from work, two days before March 28 - no trace or announcement of the event.
"I am not informed", this is how progressive Vladimir Đukanović answers the question of "Vremena" about the meeting.
Small gathering of the Movement
While it is unofficially said that SNS will still move the rally to April 4, even though then it is Students' Day or to the middle of April, the question is whether Vučić will perhaps, instead of the rally, organize the promotion of his the famous new Movement.
Because he said on Pink that the Movement will have "a small meeting and the first promotion with the founding team, on March 28 or April 4", so Vučić's "biggest meeting ever held in Serbia" somehow does not coincide with this meeting of the Movement.
"You will see some people you have never seen. That's when we start building a movement with the people and choose a name and form it on June 28," said Vučić about the SNS Movement.
There was also talk that the progressives, on the other hand, could barricade themselves in some closed hall, like the Sava Center, as they have already done. The Sava Center did not respond to the question of "Vremena" about the gatherings in this facility on that day, and there is no announcement of the event for March 28 on their website.
Students call for assemblies
During that time, the students of the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy during the blockade called on the citizens to organize assemblies in their towns on March 28, with the message that "the only responsible and politically legitimate solution is the one we all participated in creating."
"The struggle that the students started is now the struggle of our entire society. With that in mind, we are also aware that the issues we face are no longer issues that concern only students, nor are we called to decide on them ourselves," the students of the Faculty of Philosophy stated in a statement.
It is added that every social group has the right and should decide and actively participate in the politics of their community and state. As they stated, these gatherings should not represent a short-term solution, but a form of frequent pressure on political representatives of citizens.
"We must not understand the words as an immediate way out of the crisis we are in, but as a form of frequent pressure that the people would exert on the people who try to represent them, thereby taking over the constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty of each of us," the announcement on the Instagram page of students in the blockade of the Faculty of Philosophy states.
The students, as they added, consider the choirs "a legacy of their months-long struggle and a way for all of us to ensure that we don't find ourselves in a situation like this again."
"We are aware that representative democracy has disappointed us many times, both because of the corruption and abuse of position it enables, and because it was really transmitted by our voice. Instead of trusting in better, more honest and fair representatives, mediators of our votes, we can speak out ourselves. This is precisely what is made possible by assemblies, which are legally recognized and represent a way in which everyone can express their opinion," it added.
