From students to educators and environmentalists, many citizens demonstrated throughout Serbia during 2024. Their dissatisfaction and persistence showed that the pressure on the government will not decrease even in the coming year. Now the students are at the forefront of the rebellion, and Vučić can't do anything about them - and that obviously scares him
Last year in Serbia was marked by - protests. We started it with them, and it ended in the same rhythm. They will not stop even in 2025.
Namely, on New Year's Eve, at 23 p.m., the students of several Belgrade faculties organized a rally "There is no New - you still owe us the old". Students of the Faculty of Architecture, Faculty of Mathematics, Faculty of Chemistry and Agriculture began gathering at 22.30:XNUMX p.m. in Pionirski Park near the House of the National Assembly of Serbia.
After that, they walked to Student Square making noise, after which at 23.52:15 p.m. they paid their respects to those killed in Novi Sad with XNUMX minutes of silence on Student Square.
After the silence, student performances followed.
This is how the year 2025 will begin. And how did this 2024, which counts the last days, begin?
Disappointment in the opposition
Let us remind you that after the Republic Election Commission announced the final results of the elections on January 12 and after rejecting all the appeals of the opposition coalition, several thousand citizens gathered in Belgrade on January 16 with the request to cancel the results of the elections in Serbia, at another protest of the coalition "Serbia against violence".
However, this protest was not even close in number to those organized during 2023. After most of the opposition parties went to the elections and entered the parliament, a large number of citizens felt disappointed, and the opposition leaders who led the protests received numerous criticisms from the public.
The President of the country, Aleksandar Vučić, rubbed his hands with satisfaction, because for the umpteenth time, he successfully amortized the enormous dissatisfaction of the citizens and successfully ended the elections, which many predicted would be the vote in which he would lose.
In addition to not losing, he succeeded in his intention to completely divide the opposition bloc, which lost any credibility among opposition-minded citizens. The biggest gain for Vučić, however, is that the opposition has not recovered from the defeat, and will not have much success in 2025 either - unless he finds a new charismatic leader, who will manage to gather the disunited opposition voters and oppose them to the SNS electoral machinery on some new elections.
Protests against lithium
Unlike the opposition, which after entering the parliament failed to stage a successful mass protest, environmental organizations and activists who oppose the "Jadar Project" and jadarite mining were very successful. The slogan: "You will not dig" gathered citizens in many places in Serbia, even in the most passive towns in the interior. Numerous roads were blocked and protests were held, which sent a clear message to the authorities and the company "Rio Tinto".
The most massive ones were held in Loznica on June 28, at a protest called "Svelitiumski Sabor", and in Belgrade on August 10, where about 40.000 citizens attended.
The public's attention was particularly attracted by the last performance of Rio Tinto's opponents, who broke into the Hilton Hotel in Belgrade, where the company's New Year's cocktail was being held, and representatives of the "Ne damo Jadar" association, part of the students and citizens wanted to tell them that "they will not dig".
"We want to tell them not to dig and not to spend their money because there will be no one to pay them back." Aleksandar Vućić will soon either go to prison or flee the country, so they will have no one to grab by the neck and demand back what they have invested. Rio TInto is losing on all fronts, both Europe and their home country Australia have turned against them. They are hated so much that it is best to retire on time, because their ratings and shares are also falling," said Ljiljana Bralović, from the organization SEOS (Union of Environmental Organizations of Serbia).
Zlatko Kokanović, a farmer from Gornji Nedeljice and one of the most committed activists, has already announced protests in the new year, 2025.
"They check our white and red blood cells. "But they won't intimidate us, they won't silence us, they won't dig," emphasized Kokanović.
Educators and farmers
During 2024, farmers and educators regularly protested, and after unsuccessful negotiations with the Government of Serbia, it is understood that these protests will continue in the following year.
Farmers demand better conditions - increase in subsidies, simplified procedures and dismissal of the Minister of Agriculture, a since neither was the last protest held on Sunday, December 29, when they blocked the road in Badovincia did not contribute to the fulfillment of the requirements, we should expect problems on Serbian roads next year as well.
Besides them, there are also educators on the streets.
They are dissatisfied with the Serbian Government's proposal that their salary be increased by 11 percent from January.
They are asking for a bigger increase for all employees in education, so that the starting salary of teachers reaches the national average, which, they point out, the government officially committed to last year.
According to the "circular strike" model, classes were shortened in the first week of December in several cities of central and southern Serbia, while the bells rang earlier in the second week in Vojvodina schools.
At the same time, the representatives of the trade union conducted negotiations with the authorities regarding changes to the Collective Agreement, which would ensure that the salary of educators cannot be below the national average.
These strikes were joined by new ones, and since even their last meeting with the President of the State, Aleksandar Vučić, did not contribute to the fulfillment of the demands, it is certain that we will continue to read reports in the media about the protests of education employees in the coming years.
Lawyer's protest
Lawyers have also publicly shown their displeasure on several occasions this year. Everything culminated in a complete work stoppage on December 11.
As they stated, they did it because of the "illegal way of enacting and adopting changes to the Criminal Code, without adequate participation of the legal profession, selective prosecution of those responsible for the tragedy in Novi Sad, as well as selective prosecution of protest participants in that city."
The reasons for suspending the work of lawyers were the systematic and long-term interference of the executive power in the work of the judiciary and the violation of the principle of separation of powers in a democratic society.
Let us remind you that on December 5, the Board of Directors of the Bar Association of Serbia made a unanimous decision to suspend work six days later.
Lawyers will not act before courts and other important state bodies, public notaries, public bailiffs, except in proceedings in which the detention of citizens is decided on that day and in proceedings against minors.
As in other protests, the government did not take their demands seriously, so it is certain that the trend of strikes will continue in this branch as well.
Student protest - a wave of dissatisfaction that scared Vučić
The largest, the most significant and the most problematic protest for the government is still youth protest - the rebellious students were not afraid and did not become meat for the media machine of Aleksandar Vučić. On the contrary, their protests are getting more and more violent, and they are getting more and more support, even from yesterday's fans of the current government.
That they don't leave anything to chance is shown by the announcement at the beginning of this text, i.e. the protest that will take place on New Year's Eve, and without a doubt will continue on the following one as well.
And so far, it has been shown that young people are very persistent, and that really annoys the government.
Until now, the regime has tried everything that has succeeded with everyone else, threats, arrests, bribery, disparagement, insults, discrediting...However, it did not work for the students. And the president seems to be most concerned about the way students treat him - they ignore him, that is, treat him as he should - as a man who has usurped his position and appears where he does not belong.
According to the Archive of Public Meetings, the last meeting they organized in Slavija was the largest in our country since October 5, attended by over 100.000 people. There is no doubt that a similar event organized in 2025 will have a massive response from citizens.
And as it was mentioned on several occasions in the comments on the portal of the weekly "Vreme", since the student protests started, Serbia resembles a pressure cooker without a valve, which threatens to explode. The government paradoxically hopes to reduce the fire with populist measures and media incitement.
For now, she doesn't succeed at all with plump and brave academics. And it is unlikely that it will in the next year, 2025.
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