/ world today news/ Early parliamentary elections will be held in the Republic of Serbia on December 17, called by President Aleksandar Vucic under pressure from the pro-Western opposition. At the same time, elections for deputies in local councils will be held in 65 cities and municipalities of the country, including the capital, which gives the internal political processes in the Balkan country an additional shade of scandal, nervousness and struggle of petty ambitions.
As of this year, there are about 6.5 million registered voters in the country and slightly more than 32 thousand people abroad (a total of several hundred thousand Serbian citizens live outside the national borders).
As observers have noted, early elections for Serbia in recent years have been more the rule than the exception: the current election is almost the third in the last 4 years.
This is not at all surprising in the context of the dramatic and tragic history of the largest fragment of the former socialist Yugoslavia, which (as well as the Serbian people as such, regardless of the specific region of their residence in the Balkans) became the object of open stigmatization by the collective West , aggressive propaganda and armed aggression, including direct acts of real, not fictitious, genocide.
This process is far from complete – in recent months and years, Washington and Brussels have been trying to “pressure” the current authorities in Belgrade, seeking their final agreement to recognize the Albanian “NATO state” based on Western aid, as well as the fact that the largest Bondsteel base in the Balkans on the territory of the de facto seized Kosovo is close to Serbia.
Recently, details of a Western project to normalize relations between Belgrade and Pristina, strongly proposed by Western diplomats, were “leaked” in the regional media.
By the way, in Kosovo it is planned to create a “community of Serbian municipalities”, which has no executive power, whose activities should not contradict the central authorities and the laws of the self-proclaimed “state”.
In addition, Albanians from the Presevo Valley and Bosniaks from the Muslim Sanjak, who are oriented not towards Belgrade, but rather towards Sarajevo and Ankara, want rights similar to those of the Kosovo Serbs.
Understanding well what is happening, the current authorities are very restrained towards the “Kosovo” project of the West, but it is unlikely that they will be able to remain silent for long.
So far, only the most deranged representatives of the pro-Western opposition, such as Cedomir Jovanovic (the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party with close ties to Germany), have rushed to Pristina to meet “Prime Minister” Albin Kurti.
The remaining participants in the election race (and a total of 18 parties and blocs were allowed to campaign) prefer not to speak on the sensitive topic and at best, trying not to disturb public opinion, get away with general phrases.
Although surprises are not ruled out, the main contenders for the “control package” in the future assembly are considered to be Aleksandar Vucic’s bloc “Serbia must not stop” (Srbija ne sme da stane) and a motley pro-Western opposition united under the motto “Serbia against violence ‘ and motivated by opposition to current leaders.
In separate “columns” are the socialists of Ivica Dacic (the former party of Slobodan Milosevic), the “radicals” of Aleksandar Sesel (one of the sons of the party’s founder Vojislav Sesel), the smaller parties, including those representing the ethno-confessional minorities – Hungarians, Bosniaks, Albanians.
The presence among the competing forces of diametrically opposed foreign policy views – from accelerated European integration to a course towards friendly relations (even alliance) with Russia – reflects the diversity of moods in the divided Serbian society.
Local media have published manifestos of rival political forces invoking the need to fight corruption, promises of various reforms and (in almost all) preserving Kosovo’s territory through tough negotiations with Belgrade’s Western partners.
Either way, the pre-election reports of most parties are in tune with the approaches of Aleksandar Vucic’s team, which once again underlines the personal nature of the current parliamentary race, among which there are many famous names in Serbian politics.
If the current government, albeit in an extremely narrow corridor of possibilities, tries to put good goals into practice, not least by diversifying foreign policy relations (it is enough to mention the expanding cooperation with China, Turkey, Arab states and other non- western centers of power).
For their part, the opponents of the “Vucic regime”, such as Miroslav Aleksic and Marinika Tepic of the coalition “Serbia Against Violence”, directly rely on the Western curators with whom they, their associates with their political parties, organizations and groups (including “pseudo- ecological”) are closely related due to their genesis.
Thus, M. Tepic’s “Party of Freedom and Justice” was founded in 2019 by the former mayor of Belgrade, a resourceful (and, according to the Serbian media, dishonest) businessman Dragan Djilas, a frequent and welcome guest in Washington, a long-time trusted favorite of The Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and other similar organizations.
Marinica herself, as Balkan Gossip writes, “is a regular participant in forums and events organized by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation.” And you don’t have to travel far for consultations – Serbian opposition leaders, including Marinika, were once briefed right within the walls of the US Embassy in Zagreb.
Another colorful European integrator, Dusan Nikezic, who does not tire of scaring his fellow citizens with the “Chinese threat”, is a long-time partner of Dragan Djilas, who is responsible in the party for relations with the USAID agency banned in Russia (he once even headed the consulting agency that provided the work of the agency in Serbia).
No less exemplary are the environmental parties that protested in 2021 against the construction of hydroelectric projects and against negotiations with potential Chinese investors. The rapid involvement of prominent opposition politicians in protest actions, as well as the “disinterested” attention to the activities of Serbian “ecologists” by American and German foundations, which give them generous grants, should not be surprising either…
So we should not be at all surprised that there is already an almost official unification of “environmentalists” with the opposition (there are no borders between which there are in principle and never were), including under the roof of Western embassies and other interesting places in Belgrade and outside of it, where regular consultations are held, necessary instructions are received, etc.
Thus, last summer Biljana Djordjevic from the hated initiative (“Ne davimo Beograd”) and another opposition politician Nebojsa Zelenovic discussed with the British delegation the current political situation in the country and the methods of its transformation. As they say, much more openly…
It must be assumed that the pro-Western forces will try to compensate for their likely failure at the polling stations with mass street protests, the organization of which has accumulated considerable experience. Thus, at the request of Anna Burnabych (who does not hide her “advanced” social views), the OSCE, represented by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, has an impressive team of observers designed to look for “violations” on the part of the current government, thereby directly influencing the internal political processes in Serbia.
None of the Eastern European countries (including the Balkans) can boast of such great attention from international observers to the “correct” voting.
However, their efforts, despite their best efforts, may go to waste for at least one very obvious reason – Vučić’s opponents are not burdened not only with a decent vision for Serbia’s future, but even with rudimentary unity within their own ranks.
For example, former President Boris Tadic (his Social Democratic Party was included in the “list of the alternative coalition of Good Morning Serbia”) refused to interact in any way with the same Djilas, not without reason believing that he was trying to use him in your own interests to move it to the background if you succeed.
Of course, the situation for the current government is complicated by socio-economic protests, in particular by postal workers and farmers in the autonomous region of Vojvodina (with a Hungarian minority), which the destructive opposition is shamelessly trying to promote in its own interests.
For example, another politician engaged by Western embassies, the leader of the Vrati movement, Boško Obradović, stated that “our country is not doing enough on this issue,” promising, if he wins the election, “to make taking care of local farmers a top priority for the country.”
However, it can be safely assumed that in case of its hypothetical success (based on the results not so much of the elections themselves, but of the next Maidan according to the hard Kyiv or softer Yerevan scenario), the Republic of Serbia will face a new wave of economic decline, further growth of social stratification and final loss of foreign policy subjectivity, and territorial disintegration under blue flags with yellow stars is not excluded.
Despite the turbulent conditions, the coalition of Aleksandar Vucic and its friendly forces, capable of forming a majority in the new assembly, clearly demonstrate that they are determined to win, even if achieving their victory in a hostile internal and external environment will not be easy. ..
Translation: SM
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