During a summer in which European leaders focused on shuttle diplomacy with Donald Trump on trade and Ukraine, they were discreetly silent about another crisis in Eastern Europe. For more than nine months, massive student protests in Serbia have been questioning the authoritarian rule of Aleksandar Vučić, who has been in office as prime minister and president for 11 years. So far, Brussels has mostly decided to look away, writes the British Guardian.
The catalyst for some of the biggest demonstrations in Serbia’s history was the collapse of the canopy of the recently renovated Railway Station in the country’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, which led to the death of 16 people, the Guardian reminds, reports N1.
The catastrophe is mostly attributed to the deep-rooted fraud and corruption led by Aleksandar Vučić’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party, and it quickly became the spark for a movement for democratic reforms.
Students are demanding early elections and a new era of transparency and accountability, in a country that is still a candidate for the EU.
As anger and frustration grew on the streets, Vučić’s response became more and more draconian, they describe.
Baselessly claiming that foreign agitators were seeking an “imported revolution,” the Serbian president launched relentless measures against civil society groups that receive foreign funding.
On the streets, orchestrated mobs attacked demonstrators this month and allegedly demolished businesses owned by Vučić’s dissidents. There have been numerous reports of police brutality. Amid the spiral of violence, one recent anti-government demonstration in Belgrade was held under the slogan “Let’s show them we’re not a punching bag.”
Demonstrators deserve more support and solidarity from the EU than they are getting, the Guardian assesses.
An autocrat and a cynic, Vučić’s presence in the politics of the Western Balkans is assessed by the Guardian as “malignant.”
Outside the borders of Serbia, he has long cultivated a “insidious and destabilizing ethnonationalist agenda” regarding Kosovo and Republika Srpska – the ethnic Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At home, he is increasingly becoming a threat to democracy.
MORE TOPICS:
Source: Nova.rs, Photo: ATA Images