Most students want to make changes through street pressure. However, how long can they maintain that pressure, asks the Swiss public service SRF in a report from Belgrade
Serbia is experiencing a historic wave protest, while the president Aleksandar Vučić he defends and accuses in his daily appearances on television, reports the Swiss public service SRF.
The canopy has not been renovated. We don't have a sound cannon at all. Such publicly uttered lies of Serbian officials are one of the reasons that "the protest turned into a real popular uprising", SRF assesses. and DW writes.
SRF broadcast a half-hour radio report for which the reporter spoke with numerous students and experts, visiting the historic protest on March 15.
"Students are still at the head of the column. Universities are the real heart of the movement," reports journalist Janis Farlender.
The target is Vučić's system.
"Students consciously do not directly attack the omnipresent President Vučić. But when they demand that the institutions - the media, the judiciary or the election commission - do their job according to the law regardless of who is in power, they aim right at the comprehensive system of power that Vučić has built over the years," it states.
The major achievement of the mass protests is that the students managed to gather behind them "large sections of society, people who are politically from the left to the right, students and peasants, people from the metropolis and the provinces."
But, according to SRF, it succeeds because their demands are not specific. We are looking for institutions that function, and everyone can upload what they like. "Everyone is against the enormous corruption in everyday life and they don't want to put up with it anymore," it said.
"But when the question arises of how to organize the country after Vučić, unity disappears. It is already showing now."
How much longer can it go?
"The opposition is looking for a transitional government with experts, in order to pave the way to fair new elections. That request is also shared by a part of the students. But there is great distrust in the chronically divided opposition. That is why the students avoid connecting with it for now. And without them, it will be difficult," assesses SRF.
Most students want to make changes through street pressure. But the reporter wonders "how long they can maintain that pressure".
"Serbia has experienced several waves of large-scale protests in recent years. But little has been achieved. All movements died down over time. However, the current protests are building on that. They are putting Aleksandar Vučić under unprecedented pressure," SRF states and concludes:
"It seems that the momentum is on the side of the students. The question is whether it is enough to lead Serbia to a different future."
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