The Prime Minister announced that he was resigning because he heard what happened that night in Novi Sad. We don't know if anyone could believe that, especially since information about the connection between the attackers and the ruling party will emerge later in the day. And what we have seen many times has happened again: whenever Vučić, as he did at the press conference on Monday, guarantees security - someone gets hurt
Where did Sinisa Malog and Aleksandar Vučić's shared ride from exactly one year ago, posted on Instagram, go? In the video, Vučić drives, while Mali records and sings "Četiri godine, godine tuge"...
On Tuesday, February 28, 2025, there will be no driving, no songs - only the resignation of the shortest Serbian government since the introduction of multi-party system, a government headed by Miloš Vučević, the trustee of the Vučić family for Novi Sad and its surroundings since coming to power in 2012.
In a speech late on Tuesday evening, Vučić announced that he will enter into consultations with Miloš Vučević, as the president of the largest party, regarding the formation of a new government. If it wasn't terrible and it wasn't happening to us, it would be funny. Because if Vucevic resigned and if he will not be prime minister as the leader of the largest party, then how can he negotiate the formation of a new government?
Vučić also announced that in the next ten days he will make a decision whether a new government or extraordinary elections, but the events so far show us that everything can easily and dramatically change in a few days, perhaps much earlier than the mentioned ten. Basically, he announced the election for the end of April, which is dramatically earlier than the four years from the beginning of the song.
And from Miloš Vučević's statement "Tomorrow all schools are open, period" to "I submit my irrevocable resignation", not even ten days passed. And a lot happened in those ten days - the most important thing is that the students didn't give up. Moreover, part of the education workers also did not give up, while a large number of citizens on the streets supported what the students and education employees are doing.
KEY DAYS
Everyone knew that January 20 was the key date and that the future decisions of Vučić's team would depend on it - whether all schools would work or not. Namely, no one believes, and there is no evidence, that the government or ministers make any essential decisions. Teachers and parents withstood the pressure, especially in big cities. Claims that "almost all schools in Serbia work in one way or another" were in vain. The situation is brought to a boil, so the regime even suits a strike "according to the law", that is, classes last for half an hour, just so that it can be said that the teachers do not support the students.
When that did not happen and when part of the schools persisted in suspending work, the next key point was Friday, January 24. On that day, students called for a general strike across Serbia, while Vučić was trying to organize his rally in Jagodina. At that meeting, for the fifth time in the last three years, he announced and disclosed that he would establish some kind of "Movement for the People and the State".
While the people flooded the streets of most cities and municipalities in Serbia, while countless columns of people, citizens, students and students flowed through the streets of Serbian cities, several tens of thousands of people arrived in small Jagodina and crowded into the town square where they awaited Alexander's "address" Vučić. Tabloids and TV stations under the control of the president's cabinet reported that hundreds of thousands of people had gathered on a space the size of the Plateau in front of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and TV Informer reported that a million citizens had come!
Even that performance by Aleksandar Vučić did not bring anything new. It lasted 27 minutes, and in the 18th minute the plan for Serbia was mentioned. And again after that he did not say anything about the plan, but about how he would not give Serbia and the Serbian flag.
HOLE STORY
Those who have been following the activities of Aleksandar Vučić for the past thirty years could hardly have been surprised by the tone, choice of insults and words. It was a typical radical performance where political opponents and dissenters were threatened, all under the flag of Serbia and pledging their love for Serbia. The rally reminded your reporter of one of the "covid rallies" in the late spring of 2020 in Pancevo, when strict care was taken of who would come and how they would be arranged in front of the stage. Vučić was alone at this event and the only person from the government who was with him was Ivica Dacić. There were no party comrades, no family, no party coordinator, no Mile Dodik.
It was obvious that they wanted to somehow compete with the huge day of civil disobedience that happened in Serbia on Friday, they wanted to "get in the news" in any way possible. However, as at the counter rally in May 2023, the people dispersed faster than they listened to the speech, and the event itself did not bring anything new. We have not heard the name of the movement, nor who will be in the movement - nothing.
FULFILLING REQUIREMENTS, IN THE LESSONS
In parallel, the whole of Serbia stopped for one day and what is especially painful for Vučić and the regime, on Friday most schools were closed, people avoided going to markets and restaurants, and many businessmen closed their shops and joined the citizens in protest.
A car ran into the protest column in New Belgrade and once again a female student was run over. New trampling, new threatened security led to a strengthening of the protests, to an increase in the number of people on the street on the same day, and the protests exploded over the weekend.
Not a single move by the authorities and the regime led to what the regime wanted: an end to blockades and protests. And all because for the last three months, Vučić, Ana Brnabić, Vučević and all the others lied, publicly and "blamelessly" and now that people are starting to understand it, huge problems are arising. In the background of everything were student demands, which were first said to be irrelevant and non-existent, then they were said to have been fulfilled once, then a second time, then a third time and so on.
For the last time until now, Vučić "fulfilled all the demands" on Monday at an extraordinary press conference. He sat down in front of selected media with Vucevic and Ana Brnabić to tell us that he will not be cynical and to repeat and enumerate once again how he fulfilled all the demands. He did this on the day of perhaps the biggest protest so far in Belgrade, bigger than the one in Slavia and the general strike on Friday - the blockade of Autokomanda on Monday on Saint Sava - was an unprecedented event in the history of Serbian multipartyism. While Vučić was scrolling on the smart board in the Palace of Serbia in New Belgrade, there were more than 100 thousand people on the main traffic artery in Belgrade and it seemed that all this was just the beginning. After 65 days of student blockades.
Vučić promised with his closest associates that he would calm down, that he would understand, and that it was necessary to sit down and talk, that everyone should return to the institutions, and asked Miloš Vučević to quickly reconstruct the Government of Serbia. He tried his best not to offend anyone except his political opponents. As in Jagodina a few days before, it was obvious in the end that the whole "event" was just a media presentation that should serve "his" media to have the justification to spin his story for half an hour or more the next day. We didn't hear any decision, we didn't hear anything that would announce what was going to happen a little more than 12 hours later.
KAD VUCIĆ GUARANTEES SAFETY
And on Tuesday morning, while the one-day blockade of Autokomanda was ending and while the students were collecting and cleaning up after themselves, the news came from Novi Sad: during the night, students in that city were attacked - one student's jaw was broken with a baseball bat. Soon, another piece of news arrived: Miloš Vučević is resigning at a press conference in the Government of Serbia at 11 a.m.
It turned out, at least rhetorically, that these two events were connected - Vucevic announced that he was resigning because he heard what happened that night in Novi Sad. We don't know if anyone could believe that, especially since information about the connection between the attackers and the ruling party will emerge later in the day. And what we have seen many times has happened again: whenever Vučić, as he did at the press conference on Monday, guarantees security - someone gets hurt.
Vučević himself noticed this "pattern" in his last presentation and attributed it to the "black swan" phenomenon - the latest theory that was liked by Aleksandar Vučić's PR team. He believes that someone from the outside, probably those who organized the blockades, is also managing thugs who are connected to the ruling party and that you some they always create an incident when the regime believes it is about to end the student rebellion.
FORGOTTEN VUČEVIĆ
By the way, the government led by Miloš Vučević from April 30, 2024 will be remembered as the government with the shortest mandate in the recent history of Serbia - its duration is shorter than the first three Milošević governments - those led by Dragutin Zelenović, Radoman Božović and Nikola Šainović.
It was created after the controversial elections held in December 2023, in the midst of a great struggle by the opposition to annul the elections, which were compromised by elements of election theft. Vučević, a family friend of Vučić and a lawyer from Novi Sad, will not be remembered except for those two facts. Since he announced his resignation, he has already been forgotten and it remains to be seen what will happen in the coming days. His act, presented as an act of great responsibility, was assessed as late and partly hypocritical because 15 dead in Novi Sad was not enough reason to resign, and the attack on a female student was a reason to leave the head of the government.
Rather, it will be, according to what Vučić told later in the evening, that Vučević created a problem by hiring thugs and that he was kicked out of the Government of Serbia on Tuesday morning. Vučić has shown himself to be weak: he is no longer able to control the work of his party and things can happen that he did not order. Vucevic paid that price and we will see what his political future will be. In his address, Vučić remained consistent with his basic story: I am invincible, the people love me, he begged the thugs over the TV signal not to attack his political opponents and students.
POWER GAMES AND THE MELTING OF FEAR
Three months after the tragedy, Vučić pulls out his favorite weapon - elections in irregular conditions. He dissolves the government that has an absolute majority and wants new elections that he will control and thus destroy any movement of those who do not support him. He has set himself distant deadlines, but, for now, it does not seem that he is wondering much. He has shown that he is not in control of the situation, that he is not in control of the narrative and wants to play his favorite show by putting a big challenge before the students in the blockade and the citizens who support them.
Now we have to endure, but new trials for this regime are coming this weekend in Novi Sad, when people will gather and block all the bridges in this city. It seems that nobody at the university is interested in what the government embodied in Vučić says, communicates, threatens and insults, and this is increasingly the case with the majority of people. Fear is melting away, which can be seen by the rebellion in the smallest places in Serbia. And that is the biggest political statement and attitude of this year.
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
Ministers often call Vučić a class teacher. There is no joy or critical reflection in his classroom. Everyone has to bow their heads over the benches, hum and listen. What this is about, the reader sees on television every day
The archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
