The day after the election assembly of the Democratic Party, held on Saturday, October 29, we spoke with its new, now official president, Dragan Šutanovec. As the eighth president in a row, counting from the first establishment of the party, Šutanovac, in his speech at the DS Assembly, and especially after the convincing victory in the immediate intra-party elections, did not miss the opportunity to emphasize new energy, new optimism and winning spirit as the announcement of a new period a democrat. Bearing in mind the results of the party in this year's parliamentary elections and the splits within it, naturally, the first thing we asked him was on what basis is he basing his optimism, on which party results.
DEAR SHUTANOVAC: Knowing the situation within the party, the energy I felt during our election campaign, the energy above all of the young people on whom I especially relied and to whom I especially addressed, I am convinced that I am completely right and that not only DS has a chance, but also that Serbia will have a chance if we finally stop dividing and show the citizens that we can be united and offer solutions to the problems Serbia is facing.
"WEATHER": Are you threatening?, by your choice, another party split?
No. I do not expect a split in the party. The fact that several members left the party before and after the election is what caught the attention of a part of the media. I remind you that we had 2012 members until 180.000, and now we have 20.000-30.000 active members, so someone could say that 150.000 members left the party from 2012 to 2016. Therefore, it is not a topic and I will do everything to strengthen the party and I am glad that we have the opportunity to do exactly that with those people who are my focus, namely the youth.
You have been in the party since the mid-nineties and that fact, especially among those of that time "walker" it might give you a certain advantage. Why is it not in your focus?, let's say, your generation?
The fact is that we currently lack "my generation" in the party. There are several reasons, from the decision that all ministers who participated in the government from 2008 to 2012 should be practically kicked out of the DS or replaced, to the fact that there is an obvious fatigue of the material, especially among those who held power at any level. and then after that they did not manage in the opposition and became disillusioned with politics. I was also in a very high position, but I am aware that politics is not a constant and that sometimes you lose, sometimes you win, but above all you have to be dedicated and do what you think is right, not what is popular. Realistically, most do not recognize such work immediately, but sooner or later it falls into place. One of the proofs for that is the fact that there were five admirals and generals who came to support me at the DS Assembly, and this is in favor of ensuring that quality work is recognized sooner or later. Finally, the public had the opportunity to find out, through an article in "Politica", that the tanks were never melted down in Sartida, and I finally got rid of that anathema, which is simply from the domain of science fiction.
And how some of them did not find their way in the opposition?
Unfortunately, our party has not been able to find its way in the opposition in the last four years, and I think that the opposition's work in Serbia has been misplaced. The majority of the party's leadership, in the period from 2012 to 2016, considered that it was quite enough for us to fit into the atmosphere that reigns in the stadiums where Vučić is insulted, to shout "Wow, Vučić!", and then leave after that. home and we are waiting for a positive reaction. The change that we offered at the election assembly is the following: to criticize, but behind every criticism we also offer a solution. When Aleksandar Vučić says "in two years pensions will be increased", we have solutions why and how we believe that they do not have to wait two years.
You think that you will with those solutions, even though you have no power to enforce them, to restore the trust of citizens?
This is exactly how we will motivate people and restore trust, energy, and finally show that Serbia does not have to be led the way it is currently being led - with fake projects, fake reforms, fake diplomas. Everything has obviously become fake in Serbia.
Are our alarms false too?? As of yesterday, the latest one is current, "assassination attempt on the prime minister".
With my team, I seriously analyzed not only that case in Jajinci, but all cases in the last four years and up to
we went to dozens of front pages where "almost" or "almost" an assassination attempt was made on both the prime minister and the head of state. I'm not going to get into whether that's true or not, but no serious country puts out information like that. If such things happen and if we have people at the top of the MUP -
- and they reveal state secrets, then the question arises as to who did the security check on those people and how they got to those positions and how is it possible that these people have not been prosecuted so far. The huge problem here is that everything is staged, as in a drama, as in some kind of thriller, and that at the same time our country is in the phase of decay, with the highest level of poverty, the lowest standard of living, reduced salaries and pensions and increased taxes and everything. it becomes irrelevant when texts about "coups" start.
Since you yourself have held positions in the security sector for a long time, and in the Ministry of Interior and as Minister of Defense, what was your experience like before and do we have any real reason to be concerned now?
A few years ago, when I was the Minister of Defense, we received information that a certain group of people, right-wingers, were in the process of acquiring a sniper rifle with which to shoot the President of the Republic, Boris Tadić, and me at the Serbia-Italy football match. The VBA did its job professionally, people were detained, prosecuted, and it was never in the media. So, the media here is clearly used to make the public feel alarmed, sorry, but not to get to the final truth. Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of what happened with the helicopter affair, with the crash in Savamala, who wears a sock on his leg during the day and on his head at night, and then suddenly we have phantom organizations that almost killed the entire state leadership, and it creates confusion. It is very irresponsible towards the citizens and I am completely convinced that everything is just the result of the inability of this government to enable what is our first priority, which is a better standard of living. That's why we are dealing with some reality show that has now reached the very top of the country.
Yet, perhaps now there is a greater possibility of geostrategic pressures?
It is a more than obvious fact that the reform of the security sector, with the exception of the defense sector, has not even seriously begun, and is far from finished. MUP is a completely chaotic ministry in which they are enacted decisions that are not respected by people with experience, which is very important in the police. They are not respected by people who have behind them results, but those who are closer to the positions of the authorities, either at the local or republic level, are appointed. All this leads to one total entropy of the system. Serbia is threatened by threats, we are talking about asymmetric threats such as organized crime, terrorism, migration, but I see no reason for Serbia to hold three or four military parades in three years, to announce the purchase of weapons for the purpose of defense against some forces that have just killed us. attacked. I think that all this serves to mislead citizens, because the same thing was done in the nineties.
Do you know Vučić from the nineties?, maybe you had some contacts then?
No, we didn't.
Well again, how consistent is this way of ruling with his rhetoric at the time?
I'm not sure if Vučić is the creator or if it's some Delivery Unit that analyzes the situation in society and, well, when the results are not in favor of this regime, such as the announced increase in the price of heating, the price of electricity, oil derivatives, they say come on now that in public let's raise topics such as the problem with Croatia, with Bosniaks, with Russian spies, with Croatian, American spies. This is obviously becoming Dušan Kovačević's country where he can no longer write a new screenplay, because all screenwriters are in the government today. We are all interested in why citizens are not the first priority for the Government, but phantasmagories about 200 planes landing in Serbia in a few days, that some strategic missiles are arriving, that Tesla's weapons are about to be activated, such inscriptions were previously read in magazines like " The third eye".
To what extent is the influence of foreign powers present in all this??
The influence of foreign powers is usually mystified. We give ourselves too much importance. What is important to others is that there are no so-called military challenges, so that no one serious, except in the media, rattles weapons
I am not ready to go to war with anyone.
And when it comes to politics, specifically, whether foreign ambassadors "they choose" presidential candidate in Serbia?
I met with almost all the ambassadors of the EU, with the ambassador of the USA, and absolutely none of them mentioned a possible candidate or showed sympathy. They were interested in what kind of policy DS will lead, whether it will continue to be a party that promotes European values, whether it will continue to insist on strengthening the rule of law, media freedom... And these are our main topics. I was the Minister of Defense for five and a half years, and no one ever told me which weapons we could buy, which we couldn't, and how to reform our army. I claim that in the 16 years since I have been professionally engaged in politics, no one has ever told me: "do it."
Now you don't deal with the army though, you are at the center of the presidential election story.
It's the same thing with those elections. What I can conclude is that they want Serbia to continue its European path and that this is their priority, that they want the whole region to be stabilized, they are against the right-wing ruling in the region anywhere, who would bring us back either through rhetoric or through activities in the nineties. .
Will you support the joint opposition candidate or will you run on your own??
The DS will do its best to agree on a common candidate, within the entire democratic opposition, which consists of opposition parties that support Serbia's European path. What is important and what we were able to see at the assembly, and regardless of the bad result in the last elections due to which over 87 percent of our membership voted for changes within the DS, is that our party has shown that it is the backbone of the entire opposition. and that without our party it will still be difficult for any opposition candidate to seriously oppose the candidate of Aleksandar Vučić. I say, we will make efforts, but everyone must understand that this party is not on its knees or collapsing, on the contrary, we are on the run and already in the coming months we will show that energy.
Will you run for office??
The fact is that there is a part of the party that would prefer to see the president of our party at the head of the Republic, which is natural. At one time, I also believed that Boris Tadić should be the president of the Republic, and at that time there were very few of us who believed in that, so it happened. But it is not imperative. It is imperative that we see who will join together, who is the opponent, whether we have city elections at the same time or not, there are many things that define what the agreement will be.
According to estimates, a common candidate has the best chance of success. Or can we Don't you think so??
Logically, it is. Politically speaking, it is not. We must have a candidate, regardless of whether he is supported by the entire opposition, who has a chance to win. And in order to have that, serious analyses, in-depth, must be done, practically to get a photo-robot first, and then let's see if the candidate fits into that possibility. I am a supporter of the analytical approach because this is serious business. The presidential elections are the first real opportunity to change things for the better in Serbia, and we must not make an exhibition.
Don't you think that citizens, before all, react to the united opposition?
I don't think so. I think that today there are several candidates who could be extremely serious candidates, without being nominated by either the opposition or the government.
I was thinking of a candidate who would be supported by the united opposition.
And I have been saying from the very beginning that we will make an effort to find a candidate who would be supported by the opposition and who would have the best chance because of that.
Pa, really, how big is that effort and what makes it up?
That would be like asking you how much effort it would take if "Vreme", "NIN", "Nedeljnik", "Novi Magazin" all merged into one newspaper and if we as readers had only one good newspaper and only read them.
We are not talking., however, about the market, but about the opposition and the candidate for the President of the Republic.
Well, it is also a market, a political market.
I will remind you of the 2000 elections., united opposition and common candidate.
I just think that we must not make mistakes on October 5, because we are still paying the price for them today. Then we were also able to make an excellent result, and not get into a spiral of problems in which to this day we do not know who was the 5th of October, who was against. It is simply fascinating that DSS, whose president we enthroned on October 5th, renounces on October XNUMXth. And then the question really arises as to who made all the mistakes here, I think we no longer have the right to those mistakes.
I'm targeting your relationship with "Enough is enough". Saša Radulović has already mentioned that he will not vote for any party president as president of the state.
It's too early to deal with that now.
There has been talk of Saša Janković as a presidential candidate for a long time, and now you probably won't say whether he will really be your candidate.
Well, the man himself did not say whether it would be. Saša Janković has recently been under fire from the media because he is mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. So, to mention any name would be very irresponsible towards those people and I guess it would be the turn for them to say first that they are ready to take that responsibility. I don't mean the responsibility of leading the country, but the responsibility of the burden that falls on your back the moment you step up to the podium and say that you are ready to compete in unfair conditions. Look, I was not a candidate for any position, so I was demonized by the media, for four and a half years there was a court case against me and I was finally acquitted, even though I knew from the first moment that I was not guilty.
Acquittal for the affair "pasture" it arrived the day before you will be elected party president. Were you surprised that the verdict came at the right time??
The judge moved the verdict to October 28th and my lawyer accepted it, and when this was happening, our assembly was not even scheduled for October 29th. But, believe me, it is no less important to me than the election for the party president. As the president of the party, I am entering the history of the party, but as a man, parent, father of two sons, for four and a half years I had a real fear that I would be a convict. In my family, no one was ever convicted, mine were prisoners of war, they were in camps, they were in homes for war orphans, but no one ever had a misdemeanor charge. It was also a sword over my head in front of my ancestors, but also in front of my children. It exhausted me so much, and I knew, at the end of the day, that it had to be that way, because the evidence was on my side and that the decision could only have been different with severe legal violence.
The fact is that I was accused of concealing six square meters even though I was twice in the Anti-Corruption Agency, with Tanja Miščević, a woman trusted by the state leadership, who is negotiating with the EU, who was also a witness at the trial, in the desire to let's find a solution. So, it is a complete misunderstanding which then maliciously appeared as a "pasture" affair. The malicious wrote, and the gullible believed that I was building a "residential and business complex" on a pasture in the center of the city. The fact that part of the gate of the Church of St. Sava is still registered as "pasture" in the cadastre is not a topic for anyone.
Did you experience it as a legal or political reckoning??
First of all political, and then legal. When I say political, I am not claiming that someone from the government exerted pressure, but if the regime media condemns you every day in a process that continues, it is more than clear political pressure.
Do you read from that the strong intention of this government to delegitimize its opponents?
This has become the axiom of this government. You no longer have the possibility to go out with someone on a TV duel, and at the same time you are satanized by the media. Just look at that fact: I was released on Friday, in the name of the people, no matter how it sounds, and I said that I expect the media that put me on the front pages to at least do that much so that they now also put the verdict on the front pages. And no one put it on. But if I had been sentenced to five years in prison, I would have been in the headlines.
Does the same principle apply? "delegitimization" applies to any oppositional threat? DSS?
I must admit that I had several friends in the DSS, people whom I considered to be right-wing, but that it is a European right that exists in all of Europe and with whom we, as DS, could cooperate. But what is happening right now, the breakup in which Sanda Rašković Ivić was kicked out of DSS based on the working method of the UDBE, without whose help DSS would not be a parliamentary party, that is simply unbelievable to me. Local coalitions are, I think, just an image that wants to be presented as a matter of principle, but, in essence, I believe that it is a struggle for power on a half-sunken raft. And it's just a matter of who will be on the mast of the sinking ship, to survive the longest.
The fact is, however, that there are coalitions with the SNS om on the extension.
This is a matter that requires an extremely high degree of discipline within the party, and DSS has not had that discipline for a long time. I don't want to justify anyone, but since I am involved in politics and I am a field person, believe me, it is very difficult to explain to someone that he cannot enter into a coalition with his school friend with whom he would like to do something in his street, neighborhood, in his municipality . That is a question for some future time in which we will have to seriously deal with the issue and see if the parties are responsible to themselves or to the citizens. But that issue will have many preconditions, first of all, respect for the law, media that cannot be treated as they are today, councilors cannot be kidnapped, candidates cannot be beaten. At this moment, we do not share the same value system with the authorities, that is, the bully's behavior in the bar is such that we do not want to participate in it.
Is there a DS coalition anywhere on the premises? and with SNS om?
No. If that were to happen at this point, there is a decision to dissolve those boards.
Bearing in mind the mechanisms of government in "breaking" opponent, what will be the responsibility of the opposition tomorrow, if it comes true: as many candidates for president of the country as possible, less chance of success in elections?
I have already mentioned that serious research must be done, what we will offer, what kind of candidate, what topics we offer, whether the candidate can answer on those topics.
Are these studies being done??
Not yet, as far as I know. That's what we need to agree on, it's not even cheap. No one in the world runs in and puts in their candidate just like that. If we want to be serious, then we have to create a road map on how to reach the President of the Republic in a way that will satisfy the citizens and the interests of all the parties that support him. At the same time, what is most important for us are European values, with a big exclamation mark next to them. That means human rights, media freedom, rule of law. The force of law, not the right of force, which we have today, and that's obvious.
Yesterday, the new leadership of the party was elected, and what caused the greatest attention was the dismissal of the party's founder Dragoljub Mićunović from the head of the Political Council and the appointment of Zoran Lutovac in his place. Why didn't Mićunović suit you??
First of all, there was no change. Secondly, I think it is a real step forward that Lutovac and I, as people who had several heated debates, agreed that DS must strengthen and that we, by personal example, must be the change we want to see in society. Lutovac received support, he has experience, he was an ambassador, I know that he can do that job, to provide the maximum for the general benefit. I want you to know that the fact that Lutovac won 20 percent in the elections could have been zero in the Assembly, he could have been forgotten. That was the practice of this party - whoever loses is forgotten. At the start, I promised that I would not implement the "sabre" principle, and I did so.
And Professor Mićunović?
Professor Mićunović expressed his desire not to be the president of the Political Council.
He himself expressed his desire.?
Yes, and not just me.
After the internal party elections in which you won?
Yes, in the meantime. To be honest, I'm not doing very well in this situation. Because I am a man for whom everyone will tell you that when we agree on something, it will be so. I made an agreement in this campaign with several people, who later said that they didn't agree exactly like that. But now I don't have time to deal with it anymore. So, DS is moving on, Lutovac will lead the Political Council in the best possible way, we changed the statute since we introduced an honorary president who is a member of both the Political Council and the Presidency with the right to vote and who has the ability to create policy. If someone thinks it's a protocol function, I don't mind. One of the preconditions for Zoran Lutovac to become the president of the Political Council was that we do not replace prof. Mićunović. Lutovac himself said that he would not accept that we replace Mićunović, nor would I suggest removing him from the position he held years ago. So, Professor Mićunović was not dismissed. You know, I didn't replace anyone.
It doesn't concern you that Mićunović is undoubtedly offended?
In 1996, I joined this party and had the good fortune to meet and work with Zoran Djindjic. At the assembly, I said that this is Zoran Djindjic's party and I will do my best to direct the energy, politics, and vision of the party in the way that Djindjic did. If I am even a pale shadow of him, I will be very successful. I don't want to offend anyone, nor should anyone feel that way. Dragoljub Mićunović is a historical figure not only from the point of view of the DS-
-, but from the point of view of civil and democratic Serbia. I respect him and appreciate his observations on various topics, even when we disagree. That's democracy.
