From 2012 until today, Serbia has held more extraordinary parliamentary elections than regular ones. This practice represented the manipulation of democratic processes in order to stay in power. Instead of extraordinary elections being a corrective to the political crisis or the result of falling support for the ruling majority, in Serbia in the last decade they have been used as an instrument for consolidating power.
They were announced at moments when the ruling party enjoyed high popularity and control over the media, with the aim of surprising and further weakening the opposition. In the last thirteen years, Serbia has not had special elections called out of legitimate necessity. The government never announced them because its support declined, but quite the opposite, while it still had support, and only to extend its dominance.
At the moment when the elections come as a request of the citizens and not as a calculation of the authorities - when in the last ten months more than a million citizens across Serbia participated in protests against corruption and violence, protests that culminated in a clear request to call elections - the regime responds to that request with repression and brutality. Instead of opening up the political space and allowing citizens to express their will at the polls, the government tries to stifle it with beatings, arrests and intimidation.
Such a strategy not only does not extinguish discontent, but breeds even greater violence. If elections are called, they would be the first legal extraordinary elections during the mandate of this government - called not as a political game, but as a necessity to preserve a minimum of democracy and peace in society.
SOCIAL CRISIS AND ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE
The social and political crisis in Serbia has reached such a degree that extraordinary elections have become the only democratic way out. Months of civil protests against corruption and violence shook the country. Led by students, the protests spread to almost the entire country and gathered hundreds of thousands of citizens who peacefully expressed their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the country.
Instead of dialogue with citizens and fulfilling their demands, the government responded to the wave of discontent with a dangerous combination of ignoring and demonizing the protesters, followed by open repression. In his address to the public, President Aleksandar Vučić assessed that "the country is in great danger" and called the protesters "gangs that rule the streets", warning that it is a matter of days when they will kill someone.
This belligerent rhetoric practically marked the citizens at the protests as enemies of the state, which is a prelude to the use of force. In the last two weeks, during which the protests have escalated, numerous cases of police brutality and violence against citizens have been recorded. The authorities deployed a strong police force (including special units to secure state officials) to suppress the demonstrations, which led to scenes that Serbia had not seen on its streets for a long time.
It was particularly dramatic during five consecutive nights of conflict in mid-August – civil protests, which had been mostly peaceful for months, turned into open clashes when masked groups of government supporters attacked demonstrators. In cities such as Valjevo, Novi Sad, Pancevo, and even parts of Belgrade, there was violence. Thousands of citizens gathered in Valjevo, and a smaller group of masked attackers set fire to the empty SNS premises, which was followed by a conflict with the police - stones and pyrotechnics were thrown, and the police responded with shock bombs and tear gas. Similar tensions were recorded in Novi Sad and Belgrade.
According to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 83 citizens were arrested throughout Serbia during just one night of conflict. Independent reports indicate that the number of detainees in August alone exceeds a hundred - for example, several dozen people were detained in Valjevo, 17 of whom were detained on charges of assaulting officials. Also, it is estimated that dozens of demonstrators were injured in those riots, including minors, many of whom ended up receiving hospital treatment.
Reports of police brutality continue to shock the public. Numerous videos have emerged showing the excessive use of force. One of the most shocking videos comes from Valjevo: a group of policemen in riot gear mercilessly beat a young man who is lying curled up on the asphalt, and at one point a policeman approached him and asked him: "Are you an oppositionist, huh?" and then kicked him in the head.
This shocking scene - a police officer beating a citizen on suspicion of being opposition-minded - has become a symbol of police abuse for political purposes. According to eyewitnesses, minors were also brutally beaten in Valjevo: lawyer Aćimović Planojević states that monstrous beatings of children by the police were recorded in that city, and that minors were arrested and taken into custody on several occasions. There is also a video from Valjevo where about twenty gendarmes beat a man lying on the street with batons, which goes beyond any framework of torture and police brutality. In Čačak, the police chief himself was filmed punching a man in the stomach who was being held by two policemen, knocking his breath out for several minutes.
The hooligan approach of the police, which is also visible in dozens of videos from the terraces of buildings in which they beat protesters in the courtyards and houses, was not only not investigated and punished, but the Minister of the Interior and the President of the State called it a proportionate response "to attacks on the police". With this, we have entered a completely new phase of lawlessness, in which the police is given the right to "punish the arrested person according to an accelerated procedure" in accordance with his alleged offense.
Belgrade was not spared from violence either. During the protest at the Wolf Monument on the night between Friday and Saturday, the police attacked two young people and beat them to such an extent that they both suffered serious injuries - "they killed the god in them", as described by an eyewitness - so the police could not even place them in the ambulance, but had to call the ambulance, which took them. According to that testimony, the two young men were bloody and unconscious after the beating. There were also incidents in other parts of the capital: in New Belgrade, the N1 camera recorded a man with a police badge who took out a gun during the protest and walked holding it in his hand among the gathered citizens. Tear gas and stun grenades were also used on several occasions, which led to panicked scenes among civilians.
The participation of special units, which are not normally intended to break up demonstrations, was particularly disturbing. Thus, the Unit for the Security of Certain Persons and Objects (JZO) - a kind of praetorian guard loyal to President Vučić - was engaged in early July to remove student blockades, and on that occasion the deputy commander of that unit, Tanja Drobnjak, was accused of torturing a female student by pulling her hair in order to unlock her phone. Despite the fact that JZO was not formed for interventions on the streets but for the protection of persons and objects, its members participated in these actions, which is another flagrant abuse of security structures for political purposes.
The regime's retaliation did not stop at physical force. Cases of targeting and intimidation of those who spoke publicly about police torture were also recorded. A well-known example is student Nikolina Sinđelić from the Faculty of Political Sciences, who shared her shocking experience in the media: on August 14, after a protest, she was intercepted on the street by a group of non-uniformed men who turned out to be police officers, members of the JZO, and took her to the garage of the Government of Serbia building. According to her testimony, the commander of the JZO, Marko Kricak, introduced himself to her with a derogatory curse ("Whore!") and then slapped her, hit her head against the wall and threatened to strip and rape her in front of everyone. According to Nikolina, Kricak demanded that she "beg him to stop beating her", continuing the abuse for several hours, while she and a group of young people were illegally detained in the government's dark garage.
Respected journalists and analysts spoke about this case, emphasizing that such allegations should be absolutely believed given the well-known profile of Commander Kričko - they described him as a person prone to "cruel, sadistic and abusive behavior" and a man who clearly imagined that he was "the new Legion".
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, without an investigation or announcement of what happened, expressly denied Nikolina's statement, claiming that "there was no excessive use of force or mistreatment" and that she was detained only because she allegedly participated in the torch attack on the police. Nikolina also became the target of a dirty campaign - her private, intimate photos appeared on social networks, which represents a kind of act of revenge and pressure to silence the victim (former State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dijana Hrkalović was involved in the distribution of those photos). This type of "revenge pornography" against a girl who pointed out police brutality is additional proof that the state deals with dissidents without choosing the means.
The situation can therefore be described as the culmination of a social crisis: on the one hand, there are tens of thousands of citizens on the streets demanding justice, security and accountability of the government, and on the other hand, the government responds to these demands with tear gas, batons, arrests and propaganda. Political institutions are practically paralyzed - the National Assembly has long since lost its role as a place for discussing society's problems, and the Government and the President refuse to admit any responsibility for the escalation. On the contrary, the government presents everything as an attempt at a coup d'état, accusing the students of a "color revolution", the opposition of being behind "terrorists and fascists" and organizations for "money laundering and financing of terrorism". Arrests of activists, misdemeanor and criminal charges against protest participants and pressure on the media have become a daily occurrence. In such a poisoned environment, in which the government actually settles accounts with the people through force, it is clear that normal political life no longer exists.
photo: tadic rawHUNT FOR PEOPLE: Belgrade streets
ELECTIONS AS THE ONLY OPTION TO GET OUT OF THE CRISIS
Instead of further deepening the conflict with its own citizens through repression, calling elections is a civilized way to calm tensions. It is now clear that the current ruling structure cannot restore peace and stability through any police measures - every new case of beating or arresting citizens only adds fuel to the fire of popular discontent. Even the international community expresses concern: according to diplomatic sources, the European Union through the Austrian chancellor recently conveyed a warning to Vučić not to introduce a state of emergency and not to use excessive force against students, because such a move would further isolate Serbia. In other words, he was told not to try to solve the crisis with tanks in the streets, but with a political process.
So far, every attempt by the regime to suppress the protests by force has only produced the opposite effect - more public anger and the determination of the demonstrators. In such an atmosphere, the only solution that can bring things back into the constitutional framework is elections where citizens would freely express their will and give mandate to those they trust. Now is exactly that moment - huge protests and social crisis unmistakably indicate that the majority will of the people is for change to happen at the polls and not on the street. If elections are not called urgently, it is very likely that we will witness the continuation of a dangerous spiral of violence and institutional breakdown. Unfortunately, at the moment it seems that this government, if it had to choose between elections and war with its own people, would rather choose civil war than free elections.
