A walking affair

The character and work of the current Minister of Police Nebojsa Stefanović are best described and his complete biography is best sublimated by two things: 1. the well-known nickname that was given to him a long time ago and 2. a photo from one election night, in which he rested his tired head on the shoulder of a smiling Aleksandar Vučić, who he gently strokes his hair.

Although he has been involved in a series of affairs for years, he has never come out of any of them clean or guilty, never clearly placed on one side or the other - always somehow politically swindled and sloppy, but at the same time always on his feet. On the other hand, it is certain that such and such a minister, in some other position and without the unquestionable love and affection of Vučić, would not have managed to reach the position of head of the house council. Finally, even if he had somehow gotten to where he did, it is unlikely that under different circumstances, in any government, he would have survived long enough to at least warm an armchair and hang a jacket on a hanger.

THE DOCTOR AND THE POET

The biggest affair that has followed him for three and a half years now is the illegal demolition of buildings in Hercegovačka street in Savamala, with all the "extras" that existed there: from demolishers in phantom cars, to the police not responding to citizens' calls, to practically kidnapping people in the middle of the night. Instead of immediately flying away from his position, as would have been the case elsewhere (although this would not have happened anywhere else, because it is impossible, unimaginable, insane for the state to participate in such an undertaking), the minister was given the opportunity not only to defend himself ineptly, but also he explains, but also that he is suing two media on that occasion: NIN because he called him "the main phantom from Savamala" and Peščanik in which Vesna Pešić wrote that "only the stupidity of the Minister of Police Nebojša Stefanović is unsurpassed and unpredictable", and that "so far we haven't found out why exactly he was assigned the role of being the stupidest". In the court proceedings, which in no way serve the honor of the Serbian judiciary, the minister "won", and considerable fines were imposed on the media.

This is how the whole thing was at least temporarily masked: while rubble was still being blown from the buildings from Herzegovina, while the land was being cleared for new buildings and a better view of the residents of "Belgrade on the water", the public was concerned with freedom of the press and the overburdened judiciary, and the competent institutions probably weren't either. blinked at a series of bizarre things and lies uttered by the highest state officials on the occasion of Savamala - led by Vučić and the Minister of Police.

In this sense, it would be said that the "student" has surpassed the "teacher". While Vučić remained within the framework of that anthological thesis about "complete idiots" and the message that he would demolish Savamala in broad daylight, for all to see, the minister stated that the demolished buildings were used for "acquiring wealth", that they were "buildings obtained through the combination of politics and tycoons", that the police were not allowed to respond to citizens' calls because the policemen could be killed by the electric current from the ruins, and it was not allowed to endanger the lives of the policemen.

All these, of course, are not the statements of a serious police minister: such a thing could only be thought and spoken by someone who has a character in accordance with that popular nickname, and who at the same time enjoys the protection of the very top of the state.

Before this scandal, there was a scandal related to a plagiarized doctorate. When it was discovered in 2014 that Dr. Stefanović simply copied parts of his doctorate, the matter reverberated on all sides, but - just like the case of the demolition in Savamala - it produced absolutely no results. The unsuspecting doctor, who at the time of the discovery of the plagiarism was already the Minister of Police, was appointed to the same position after the 2016 election, and all journalistic and scientific evidence was persistently disqualified from the highest state lecterns.

Although because of this it was never clarified whether the minister really stole the results of other people's work, in the meantime a new "educational affair" arrived, in which the question was raised about the university diploma of Nebojsa Stefanović. Quite in accordance with his usual pattern of behavior, he slurred and slurred in response to questions about his place of study and graduation. The debate dragged on for days as to whether he studied in Belgrade or in the London branch of Megatrend University, so that in the end he himself would shine again by pointing out that he studied by attending some kind of classes at the Sava Center (?!). The Senate of Megatrend then confirmed that Stefanović was their student, and recordings of his index and other university documents were released to the public via Tanjug.

Although colleague Lazar Covs expertly dissected these materials and once again showed that it was about a man - it has not yet been publicly confirmed whether Stefanović studied or was a correspondence student of an evening course in New Belgrade.

In fact, all doubts were "dispelled" in his own style by Aleksandar Vučić himself, who these days - and on the occasion of Siniša Malog's dubious doctoral thesis - said that a person does not really need any schooling to be a minister in the Serbian government. Of course, no one asked that question. The question was raised about theft and lying, but what would Vučić be interested in anyway? Slogans about knowledge and political will, as elements that have a greater specific weight than some doctorate or faculty, sound much better.

In a series of affairs, of which these two are only the tip of the iceberg, the current story about the arms trade and Branko's father will most certainly remain without an adequate conclusion: the minister will certainly not fly from the Government, the father will certainly remain what he was before, and the citizens Serbia will not know the complete truth again as they will be buried by new scandals. Because, in the case of Nebojsa Stefanović, it can only end that way.

PEARLS WITHOUT SHINE

Apart from his debatable educational status and fat cheek, Stefanović resembles his party colleagues when it comes to verbal bravado. One of the anthology ones is the one from December last year when "One in five million" was counting heads and recalculating how many "adults in winter jackets" there were in the photos of the protest. Then he recommended the citizens to do mathematics: "Calculate how much he can stand and walk." So that they move and that one man takes a step. Calculate how much it is for one man to take a step and another man to take a step behind him." As if that wasn't enough, in another episode of these calculations, he explained that one square could fit "a maximum density of three men with winter jackets ".

Brilliant and unfairly neglected, the minister's bravado on the topic of fairy tale authors remained. Responding to a statement by Boško Obradović, Stefanović said in December 2016 that some people "when they don't have the Andersen brothers before bed, they invent fairy tales, which they publish in newspapers." After it was explained to him that there are Brothers Grimm, and that Andersen is the one and only Hans Christian, he explained it like this: "Lapsus linguae arises under the influence of semantic closeness." Mine is a spontaneous reaction to someone's emergence of confabulation – rich false memories.”

All this, of course, falls into a completely different plane when we recall the minister surrounded by members of the special police forces at an ordinary press conference, when we analyze every threatening message from his state secretary Biljana Ivković, when we return to the never-explained story about his closest associate Dijana Hrkalović and her connections with criminal groups, and her mysterious departure from the MUP. Here, just like in the scandal with weapons or phantoms from Herzegovina, it can be seen that we are not dealing here only with a faceless nerd prone to gaffes, as Stefanović seems at first glance, but with a man who is one of the most important links of the Vučić regime - ready for action, capable of everything, without burdensome ethical barriers, completely immersed in this and that regime, which she unquestioningly serves and in whose creation she actively participates.

The official biography says that he was born in Belgrade in 1976, that he graduated from university at Megatrend and received his doctorate, that he worked in private companies in "various activities", from distribution of computer equipment to marketing. He was a member of the Serbian Radical Party, an employee of the General Secretariat (at the time Vučić was the General Secretary), deputy secretary, member of the Radical Party in the Belgrade Assembly, and since 2007, a member of the Republic. After the founding of SNS, he moved to that party and quickly advanced: vice president, member of the Presidency, president of the Belgrade committee, all of which he was until finally, in July 2012, he reached the position of president of the Assembly. Since April 2014, he has been the Minister of Police, and since 2017, Secretary of the National Security Council and Head of the Bureau for Coordination of Security Services.

Even without additions in the form of affairs, pearls and the fact that Stefanović is the closest associate of the center of this government, this is a really impressive CV. The question, of course, is what his grand finale will be. And whether it has passed or is still expected.