Ski jumping for loyalists

In the continuation of the attempt to stop the decline in ratings and to spoil the image of students in Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić has led a radical TV dictatorship: it is now "published" every God's day, without interruption or pause, it only changes the channels with the national frequency.

It seems that the biggest challenge is how to dress Aleksandar Vučić. Namely, he has now made his public addresses every day, so he is ashamed to always appear in the same administrative publication. That's why his colleagues from the PR team made an effort to refresh the winter atmosphere with new skates and new jackets in new colors.

It seems that Vučić has already developed a certain style: when he meets "with strangers" it is a top suit, tailored to measure, by no means the ones he bought from the "shopkeeper" as a young radical. And when he talks about the "internal plan" - from the army to government meetings and TV appearances - it's time for a more relaxed edition - roller skates, denim shorts, jeans and shoes without laces.

BLOOD OATH

In addition, it is also new that in the last ten days - in all those hours and hours of TV appearances - Vučić talks about the so-called loyalists, a special faction within the SNS; the public learned this on the last day of 2024, in an appearance on TV Prva. Then Vučić, in response to a question that no one asked him and in a state that some assessed as "slightly tipsy", announced that there is a group of "faithful" or "loyalists" within the SNS and that their meeting was held earlier that day, about which reported TV Informer, whose owner Dragan J. Vučićević is one of the members of that "formation".

In a rather confusing explanation, Vučić clarified that today there are about 17000 loyalists. Among them are his brother Andrej and another member of his family, as well as SNS officials who physically clashed with opposition politician Dragan Đilas and people from Belgrade on December 20. his Freedom and Justice Party.

"I am not part of that team and I always thought it was an exaggeration. But part of it is people very close to me", said Vučić, speaking of "loyalists".

He added that five years ago, when some media announced that there was a chance for SNS to enter into a coalition with the opposition Democratic Party, people from that circle "warned" him that they were against it. They also warned all those who think that it is necessary to go against it, and that they will not have any support within the party. Vučić also said that, whenever a crisis situation arose, not one of those "loyalists" left them, unlike many others who did so.

"They are there as guardians of the fire and I can only speak positively about them, except that they are a bit extreme. They are mostly men, there are few women", said Vučić.

These people have a habit of gathering "in a small church" and that they "sworn in blood" that there would never be any more cooperation with the parties of the former government. As he told the bewildered presenter of TV Prva, that group always fiercely fought "against currents coming from the Western intelligence sector".

"Mostly they are pro-Russian oriented. When I say pro-Russian, I mean that they are in favor of a free, independent Serbia, but if they have to choose, they will always be more pro-Russian, and strongly against those who want to carry out a color revolution", said Vučić.

According to Vučić, the turning point for the "group of the most loyal" was November 3, when citizens' protests began due to the death of 15 people in the fall of the canopy of the Railway Station in Novi Sad on November 1. Vučić compared that evening in Novi Sad to January 6, 2021 in Washington, when Trump's supporters tried to prevent Joe Biden from coming to power by invading Congress.

This "new information" in the sea of ​​old and regurgitated information about how students are good, but the bad ones are paid from outside, how we need educators and how they are right, but they are politically trained and they will all be fired if they strike, how will young people will be provided with million-dollar guarantees for the purchase of an apartment, and the state will be bankrupt by March 15 due to unprecedented sanctions according to the NIS, in the following days it will be completely diluted and changed. It was more or less abandoned and before Christmas no one from the government, not even Vučić, repeated it.

IDEOLOGIST FROM BIA

The reactions of the public were immediate. Not only representatives of the opposition, but also people who follow and analyze the work of the regime on a daily basis, condemned the existence of "loyalists". They were immediately recognized as a kind of progressive paramilitary formation, similar to the Nazi assault squads in Germany in the 1930s. It was requested that the public prosecutor's office act and launch an investigation into what kind of group it is that swears by blood and is ready to fight to the last to preserve the power of Aleksandar Vučić.

The answers of Vučić and his closest collaborators, such as Miloš Vučević and Ana Brnabić, went in the direction of a new spin: none of the interpretation of Vučić's statement is true, there are no assault squads, it is a shame to say such things, these are honest people within the party who do not they want "rotten compromises" with the opposition, which used to be the government and which turned Serbia into black.

A little deeper insight could show that this statement, apart from making new circles and muddying the media where the student protest dominates and where it is not mentioned much - like on RTS - illustrates the dynamics of relations within the ruling party, but also the insecurity which crept into the ranks of that business-political structure.

Obviously, many voices called on Vučić to think, perhaps to see how to get out of this crisis as painlessly as possible, and make some concessions to the opposition and the part of the public that does not support him. Namely, numerous local representatives of this party are not quite able to threaten and intimidate fellow citizens in the way that Vučić constantly does on national frequencies. The state of rebellion or creeping rebellion is something that people at the bar feel very well, and it is possible that there was an attempt to appease the boss and from the top start to reduce the tension so that their positions would not be preserved.

Vučić's constant insistence that, as long as he is alive, he will not "give a transitional government" can only mean that it was widely discussed at different levels and with different interlocutors - both within the party and with foreigners, but also at weekly lunches with family.

It's no secret that Vučić's father Andjelko and brother Andrej have the greatest influence. The latter now appears as the leader of the most radical current within the ruling regime and the person to whom some local sheriffs publicly swear. Vučić often used his family in conversations with "foreigners" to show the division in Serbia: "My brother and father are for Russia, and my wife is for Ukraine, my son always goes to church, and I only sometimes", he knew that he regretted meetings with foreign envoys and ambassadors.

Furthermore, the analysis of the language and terms he used in the presentation of his ultra-radical faction speaks of the great influence of one of the bosses within the BIA - Marko Parezanović. He acquired that status precisely on the story of the so-called colored revolutions. From what the tabloids publish and what regime officials say, one can see the narrative that Parezanović immortalized in his doctoral thesis from the beginning of Vučić's rule - "Colored Revolutions in the Vortex of the Recomposition of International Political Relations."

So, when the line is drawn, we have lovers of the Kremlin, theoretically supported by the Security and Information Agency, and financially and in every other way from the top of the state. Loyalists are not for underestimation and ridicule, but for a really serious investigation by the prosecutor's office, because the question arises as to what their role is in the governance of Serbia. It should also be examined whether the decisions are made by the Government or some kind of "Black Hand 2 - Legat 1903". Really - who could be the new Apis?

The fact that this Vučić's media offensive was covered by confusion is also shown by the fact that they see themselves as the "Guardians of November 3", when a coup d'état was allegedly prevented, which they identify with the attack on the US Congress on January 6, 2021. In essence, it turns out that these loyalists have their eyes on the Qanon movement in the US, which supports Donald Trump.

As Vučić himself is often known to say: "The frog saw the horse's shoeing and raised its leg", but the daily violence of SNS members, which the police and prosecutors do not prosecute, does not give anyone the right to make fun of such announcements. On the contrary, lights and cameras should be placed everywhere, like Rudy Giuliani when he was the mayor of New York and thanks to that move he managed to deal with gangs and crime.