Students of three Belgrade faculties confirmed for "Vreme" that their representatives will not appear at the round table he invited People's Movement of Serbia Miroslav Aleksić.
"People from our faculty were the most enthusiastic to talk with the opposition, but we still decided not to go to the meeting," one of the students of the Faculty of Law told "Vreme". "Those invitations are quite short and not very enthusiastic, so we don't expect such meetings to change anything in particular."
They don't want to be among the parties.
A student of the Faculty of Agriculture tells "Vreme" that their faculty will not have a representative at this meeting either.
"We said from the beginning that we would not get involved in a party, so we stand by this position. We received an invitation, but we never even considered going," she says, while a student at the Faculty of Political Sciences also answered for "Vreme" that "as far as he knows" they will not come either.
The NPS stated that they called each university individually, so each faculty decided independently. However, they added that no one has answered them so far.
Although it is not excluded that students from a faculty could send representatives to the meeting, for now it seems that this will not happen.
Lazović: Time for everyone to talk
What could connect the students, the opposition and the civil sector is the main topic of the meeting, which is the election conditions. Because, for months now, students have been demanding the calling of extraordinary parliamentary elections in the country. At the announced round table, the voter list will be discussed first.
Radomir Lazović from Green-Left Front he says for "Vreme" that their representatives will certainly go to the meeting because for them "the issue of the voter list is extremely important and one of the basic conditions for future elections to be more fair and honest."
"I think it is necessary to open the coordination of all actors as soon as possible," he says. "It certainly won't be the topic of this first meeting, but I believe that it is necessary to discuss three issues together - how to force the government to call elections, how to win those elections, and how to protect people who are under attack by the regime."
Although he says that he would not answer the question - whether he might be planning to call for a meeting with this agenda, he adds that he would certainly respond to the invitation.
"I would not like to speak on behalf of the opposition, but I think that the coordination of everyone, activists, opposition and students, is necessary. It is necessary to achieve a synergy of ideas and to open new fields of struggle," says Lazović.
It does not directly answer the question - is it too late for the opposition to gather and why did they wait so long for this round table?
"The best moment is now. The one that has passed, we cannot take back, and it is better not to wait for the next one to pass," says Lazović.
Who else is coming from the opposition?
They come from the Ecological Uprising, and Danijela Nestorović, their member of parliament, tells Danas that the EU will respond to the call of the NPS, because everyone has been wishing for months to finally sit down at the same table.
The president of one wing of POKS and member of parliament, Vladimir Jelić, said that POKS and the Serbian coalition NADA, which also includes the New DSS, since the end of the last election cycle in December 2023 - when the biggest election theft in recent history was recorded - have consistently insisted that the priority of the entire opposition be the improvement of election conditions. However, he added that they did not receive an official invitation to the meeting, reports Danas.
The Freedom and Justice Party says that they will probably attend the round table organized by the NPS, because, as they say, they support every gathering, and the Free Citizens Movement will also respond to the invitation, because, as they note, they have always been open to all initiatives from the ranks of the opposition.
Who else will respond?
The invitation was also sent to the non-governmental secretaries, primarily to those who participated in the process of improving election conditions, ie. Crti, Cesida, Transparency, Civic Initiatives and ProGlas.
Representatives of ProGlas will attend the meeting, Miodrag Jovanović, a professor at the Faculty of Law and one of the initiators of ProGlas, confirmed to Danas.
Raša Nedeljkov, program director of Crta, told Danas that he would respond to the call of the NPS, while the same media reported the statement of the director of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID), Bojan Klačar, in which he said that they had not yet decided whether to appear.
