Serbia: Faced with a challenge, the president organizes a giant rally of support

Tens of thousands of supporters were bussed in from all over Serbia and even from Kosovo and Bosnia, schools and theaters were closed across the country, officials were strictly “invited” to travel… As in Yugoslavia’s greatest hour, the Serbian president organized a giant rally on Friday, May 26, using all the means of the state to respond. The unprecedented protests that have rocked the Balkan country since eighteen people died in early May.

Only a strong and united Serbia can solve the problems. Aleksandar Vucic said in front of a crowd judged by power “up to 200,000 people”, They gathered in the rain in front of the parliament in the heart of Belgrade after being transported across the country free of charge. Mr. Vucic took advantage of this gathering, which he called “Serbia of Hope” and presented it as “The greatest in the history of Serbia”, To reach the opponents with a promise “open dialog” when scolding “Politicians who tried to abuse the tragedy”.

A former information minister under the late dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who was elected prime minister and then president in 2014, Mr. Vucic hopes to defuse a protest movement called “Serbia Against Violence” that accuses him of being less indirectly responsible for the massacre. On May 3 at a school in Belgrade, when a 13-year-old teenager shot and killed nine of his classmates and a school guard, as well as a shooting that happened the next day in a rural area to the south. The capital of Serbia, which killed eight people.

The movement organized by the opposition demands the resignation of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the head of the Intelligence Service. He also criticizes the government media for their reality TV shows that glorify crime and violence. But opponents accuse the president more broadly of his mafia ties and “A form of moral and political crisis from which we can only emerge by resetting the political system, which has to do with working on our history and the place of violence in our society.”,, says Dobrica Veselinovic, one of the leaders of the left-wing environmentalist party “Don’t Break Belgrade”.

“This is the beginning of the end”

The last opposition rally, on Friday, May 19, was surprisingly large, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of the capital. Many protesters compared it to the historic protests that led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. In developing ties with China and Russia, follow the example of Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán. The Magyar foreign minister also traveled to Belgrade on Friday to deliver a speech in support of Mr. Vucic.