One of the most spent topics in the political life of Serbia has long been the 'crisis of the left', that is, the absence of these forces on the political scene. However, with the parliamentary elections in 2013 and the results of those elections, it became clear that we also have a "crisis of the right", primarily due to the fact that the Democratic Party of Serbia did not pass the census. Today, this part of the political spectrum has no representatives in the parliament. Given that a good part, if not all, of their political content, these parties drew from their opposition to Serbia's entry into the European Union, we have come to a paradox: regarding the European Union, the balance of power in the Parliament is such that it has no opponents, while in the electorate, surveys vary between 40 and 50 percent of citizens who are against or indifferent. This means that almost half of the electorate does not have its representatives in the parliament, or did not vote for those who would represent their political position.
The poor state of the right in Serbia is also told by the fact that in recent days, in the midst of preparations for the Pride Parade, there is no particularly loud opposition to this event in the public, as we were used to in previous years. The right is returning to the public space, however, through other channels: first of all, due to the announced elections in the Democratic Party of Serbia, and then thanks to the announcements of the recent DSS official, Nenad Popović, about the founding of a new party. A similar announcement came from playwright Sinisa Kovačević.
Slobodan Antonić, sociologist and editor of the magazine "Nova srpska politika misao", as a good connoisseur and representative of right-wing ideas, says in an interview for "Vreme" that this part of the political scene must go through a serious change.
"WEATHER": How do you assess the current situation in the conservative part of the political scene in Serbia, in terms of strength, influence and dominant values represented there?
SLOBODAN ANTONIĆ: I don't know who you call "conservative", probably PUPS? Let's stick to what people or groups call themselves. No party and no group is considered "conservative" in our country. Those you are referring to call themselves "national", "patriotic" or "sovereignist" forces. We call them that. Their current strength is small, although the potential goes up to 40 percent of the electorate. So many respondents, for example, say that they would not sacrifice Kosovo for joining the European Union and that between Russia and the European Union, Russia should be chosen.
But there is a whole gulf between the potential and the real. Some women's party has a potential of 50 percent of voters, but realistically, you cannot enter the parliament on women's issues in our country. The same is true today with the issue of Kosovo or the Brussels Agreement. The last elections showed that you cannot base your policy on that alone.
The main topic today is the wallet. The progressives, and before them the Democrats, connected their strategic commitment to the EU with the wallet. They managed to make citizens believe that European integration will fill their pockets. The sovereignists must do the same, if they want to have electoral success. Their basic idea is that Serbia is better off without the EU. How good is that for the wallet? When they answer that, they will enter the parliament.
Which political actors belong to that bloc?
There is no block, it's just ideas about organizing or grouping, circulating around town. The basic idea, as I understand it, is to do what was missed in the 2012 and 2014 elections - to create a patriotic DOS.
Who would make that patriotic DOS, if you say there is no block?
We mean, first, the tying together of the fragments of the former parliamentary parties: first, what remained of the Democratic Party of Serbia, then the group around Nenad Popović, and Siniša Kovačević was announcing a new party, and then what remained of the Serbian Radical Party. Of the non-parliamentary parties, Dveri is mentioned, perhaps Third Serbia, and certain representatives of the national intelligentsia or their clubs are also counted. I see that the "New Serbian Political Thought" is also being counted on. Actually, it would not be a new DOS, but a new DEPOS.
But it's all still on a long stick. Blocks are difficult to make in our country. The question is whether DOS, as an anti-Milošević bloc, would have been created at all in 2000 if the parties had not pressured the leaders of the opposition. In addition, the government prefers a divided rather than a united opposition.
Is that idea about formation "patriotic DOS a" at least partially motivated by the heavy defeat these parties suffered in the last parliamentary elections?
True, the catastrophe of the sovereigntists in the 2014 elections suppressed many vanities. The conviction of the necessity of linking the sovereignist forces has matured among many. The election is still a long way off, but I have the impression that in the coming months they will work on it.
Where is the place? "New Serbian political thoughts" since it is not a political movement?
The group of intellectuals around the NSPM see themselves as sovereignists, but also as civil democrats. In terms of adherence to parliamentarism, we are close to the DSS and its new gloves, but we also have a distance from that party due to its cooperation with the SNS in Belgrade. You cannot be in opposition to the regime and be part of the regime at the same time.
When you talk about sovereignists, it seems that you think much more about the Democratic Party of Serbia and "New Serbian political thought". What about the Serbian Radical Party?, Dver or Third Serbia? How do they differ??
In relation to SRS, Dvera or Third Serbia, we are not really sure about their commitment to democracy and parliamentarism. Serbia should not gain sovereignty by losing democracy along the way. Unfortunately, democracy is less and less appreciated in Serbia, thanks to the joint work of almost all parliamentary parties, including those that call themselves democratic. But democracy is distorted today not only in Belgrade but also elsewhere in the world. Because of this, many began to despise her. I have the impression that, globally, we are in a situation similar to that of the 20s. The elite has less and less faith in democracy because they think it is not efficient enough. That is wrong. Democracy is complicated and slow, but it is the basis of every decent society. And in the long run, authoritarian shortcuts usually lead to the abyss.
In recent weeks, we have had several topics related to this part of the political spectrum since the DSS elections u, through the departure of Nenad Popović and the establishment of a new party, until Sinisa Kovačević's announcement that he would establish the Serbian Fatherland Front. Do you, considering all of the above, we can talk about some kind of "turmoil on the right" or even just about the turmoil in the DSS u?
What a right wing, do you think this government is left wing? Those concepts are unusable and serve more to disqualify than to understand our policy.
Yes, there is turmoil in that part of the political spectrum, not only in DSS. All the old sovereigntist companies went bankrupt in the 2014 elections. These are the companies that lost their customers. That's why new companies are being rapidly created, with the idea of creating a consortium before the elections, with a new attractive brand. That strategy is not unintelligent and has its chances.
We often label this part of the political scene as right-wing and conservative. On the other hand, we have block parties that are in power, as well as parliamentary opposition parties, whose value concept is difficult to precisely identify. Given the values it currently represents, so that today's Serbian progressive party could be classified on an ideological level? Simply put what political values and goals are represented by, for example, SNS and, on the other hand, DS?
Ideological and political differences between SNS and DS have practically disappeared. All that remained were marketing differences, externally, and some intellectual differences, internally. The SNS has Vučić, and the DS has no one. That's the marketing difference. As for the latter, SNS, with only a few exceptions, is an intellectual lumpenproletariat. Look at their parliamentary luminaries and everything will be clear to you.
DS still has some kind of intelligence, although increasingly second-rate. Although the intellectual difference is in favor of DS, their advantage is not seen politically. Because Vučić as a brand, as an engine, brings superiority to SNS.
As for ideas, SNS has only one idea - Aleksandar Vučić. His political formula is simple. He complains about how the yellows stole everything, how foreigners are constantly pressuring you, how tycoons are working on your head and how it is endlessly difficult for you. Then, constantly announce painful measures, but when it comes to them, don't touch your lower class voters, but hit the middle class. What do you care, they vote for yellow anyway. And control the media, don't let some dissonant opinion accidentally get on TV.
Aleksandar Vučić also benefits from the fact that the Democratic Party is weak...
When it comes to DS and its factions, they are the funniest opposition since 1992. About the level of the assembly after the 1990 elections. Mere decoration. Besides, they are courting foreign ambassadors and Brussels more than local voters. If they were really a democratic party, they would not, first of all, recognize the legitimacy of the past elections. With this kind of media and the treatment of the opposition, it is hard to believe that these were democratic elections. DS received four times less minutes on television than SNS, and when they were mentioned there, they were called "weeds" and "seeds of evil". But, since the foreigners said that these were democratic elections, then the DS also recognized them as democratic.
Second, if the DS was really a democratic party, it would renounce, constantly and always, the democratic character of the government. Because the more free our big media are, the more democracies we have. And when was the last time you heard criticism of Aleksandar Vučić on TV? Even shows that critics of Vučić may be invited to are canceled and marginalized. But the DS does not dare to ask the SNS about democracy, because even when he was in power, he did not show himself as a champion of media freedom. Although there has not been such a numbing of pluralism in the media since Dobrivoj Vidić, I guess.
How ideological is it?, and in the case of some parties on the right i, so to speak, financial closeness to Russia is an important factor for conservative forces here?
The factor of Russian money is not insignificant, but it is still secondary. That money, realistically, is a hundred times less than what is pumped here from Brussels and Washington for various political projects. Given the public's sympathy, with a small increase in investment the Russians could do a miracle here. But they do not lead a "proactive" policy in Serbia. In my opinion, they did not do that in Ukraine either. That's why they've largely lost it now. Well, if they didn't do it in Ukraine, they won't do it in Serbia either. The sovereignists cannot hope for any greater help from there. But "into each other and into their own pockets".
When we talk about the passivation of the electorate, she seems to be taking turns "liberal" or "civil" part and this more conservative part of the voters. How could you explain me??
Our entire electorate is tired, confused and scared. It's tiring because it's constantly voting, and it's getting worse. It's messed up because it's buried in a media blizzard, stories that serve to divert attention. And it is scared because it is clear to him that our economic system has no future, since we are producing less and less. But the elite is always to blame for the passivation of voters. With us, there is no articulation of an alternative, only old mantras are repeated. Those mantras sometimes contain good ideas, but their form is no longer attractive. New synapses, new associations, new imagination are needed, so to speak. Emotions need to be triggered. This is precisely the task of the elite, both those from the civic option and those from the sovereignist option.
Would you, due to the announced economic measures and the increase in social dissatisfaction, the forces we are talking about could strengthen?
Not automatically, only if a suitable political formula is found. The core of that formula should be civil resistance. In Serbia, the destruction of the core of the bourgeois class is underway, since the industrial workforce was previously destroyed. They are rapidly turning us into auxiliary labor force, poorly paid servants of foreign capital. It is even propagated as a social ideal. And when the independent citizen class disappears, even the potential for our real independence will disappear. The sovereignists must figure out a way to establish a connection in people's minds between independence and alternative economic policies.
Approximately - in order to live better, we have to lead a different economic policy, and in order to have a different economic policy, we have to be a sovereign democracy. This means that our future is decided in Belgrade, not in Brussels and Washington. And that it is decided by ballots in Sombor and Ivanjica, and not by the number of zeros in the accounts of Brussels and Washington bureaucrats and lobby groups.
If the sovereignists manage to explain this idea to the electorate, they can hope for some success.
