By calling elections, Aleksandar Vučić has dared to make a risky move in an effort to consolidate his grip on power completely, a maneuver seen so far only in Russia, the German weekly Tagespost writes in a commentary titled “Serbia on the Road to Dictatorship.”
The conservative Catholic weekly writes that since 2014, when Vučić became prime minister, and 2017, when he became president, he and his Serbian Progressive Party have systematically taken control of Serbia’s media landscape, economy and judiciary.
After anti-government protests involving hundreds of thousands of participants erupted in Serbia last year, the authorities “responded ruthlessly: demonstrators were beaten, professors and teachers lost their jobs, and pro-government media accused protesting students of betraying their country,” Tagespost writes.
“Speaking freely about non-transparent tenders, the embezzlement of public funds and the Vučić clan’s ties to organized crime in the country has become virtually impossible. Thousands of Serbs are therefore seeking their future abroad,” the weekly writes.
“Values and the rule of law are what separate the autocratic Serbian president from the EU”
The German weekly writes that the European Union has also confirmed that Serbia is making no progress on its European path. It adds that Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has announced that, after the elections, an assessment will be made of how serious Belgrade is about its ambition to join the EU, and whether it merely talks about that goal or is actually working toward it.
“Her frustration is justified. Since 2022, the Serbian government has persistently refused to join EU sanctions against Russia’s leadership or align itself with European foreign and security policy. And this is entirely deliberate, since the idea of Russia as the Balkans’ big brother, godfather and protector has a long tradition,” the weekly writes.
Nevertheless, Vučić did not invent the policy of balancing his country between Europe and Russia, and more recently China, but has “merely perfected” it, writes the publication, which has considerable influence in conservative Catholic academic circles.
Tagespost writes that “the former secretary-general of the racist Serbian Radical Party led by convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj and information minister under Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milošević even boasts of his privileged relationship with Vladimir Putin, from whom he receives high-ranking decorations, while taking in substantial EU pre-accession funds from Brussels.”
All of this, along with his publicly expressed sympathies for war criminal Ratko Mladić, “demonstrates that it is precisely their understanding of values and the rule of law that separates the autocratic Serbian president from the European Union,” according to Tagespost.
“In this situation, Vučić has dared to make a risky turn in order to consolidate his grip on power. He resigned as president so that on October 25 he could become prime minister again as the top candidate on the Serbian Progressive Party’s list. After that, he will probably, as Putin did with (Dmitry) Medvedev, send one of his own men into the presidential race,” Tagespost writes.
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