POLITICS
Snap parliamentary, provincial, and Belgrade elections, as well as elections in about 60 local self-governments, will be held in less than a month. The campaign appears to have started rather intensely and in a dirty fashion since the day of calling the elections. In answer to the question what could be expected with the elections coming near, given such a start, Vladimir Orlić, Speaker of the Serbian Parliament and a Progressive Party official, said in his interview with Kurir that “the former regime has launched a campaign by a volley of the dirtiest of lies, insults, and violence, with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and the members of his family again being in all their crosshairs again.”
“Ever since day one of the campaign, they cruelly pounced at Aleksandar Vučić’s mother, using unheard-of and inconceivable insults, then moving on to his father, brother, wife, and children, including his youngest – a six-year-old. Beasts don’t act the way the tycoons and thieves from the previous regime have been doing, alongside all their hired guns – the party and media henchmen. This will never change, not in a month, or even a decade. The only thing they have to offer is their pathological hate. On the other hand, the electoral list ‘Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop’ talks about the results and plans for the future. Serbia will choose between that hatred and this future in December: for tycoon Đilas or for President Vučić – there is no third option.”
Have you heard some concrete suggestions and plans for the period after the elections, i.e. a political programme, and from which party? Or does it all boil down to attacking the other options?
“When Đilas’s list even tries to mumble something regarding what happens after the elections, all you hear are their intentions to tear something down. ‘We will stop the works here and there, we will stop the metro, we will stop the Expo…,’ that’s all. They want to tear things down, break them apart, destroy them, angry as they are at everything that is good for Serbia, which is associated with the name of Aleksandar Vučić because it represents the results of his policies. The fake tycoon ‘right-wingers’, when they are not attacking Vučić and Serbia, seem only to be competing amongst each other in who will be more servile to their boss, Đilas, pledging loyalty to him and promising that they would fall on their knees before him and his billions after the elections. Only the electoral list ‘Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop’ calls upon the nation to work together, finish the highways and modern railroads that we have started, build new hospitals and technological parks, raise salaries and pensions, with a clear plan: to raise the average salary in 2027 to EURO 1,400, and the minimal wage and pensions to EURO 640. That’s where life is, that’s where the future lies, that constitutes policy. Returning to the past, plundering, and looting are no policy – it’s pure destruction, the killing of Serbia, which we cannot let happen.”
You are listed fifth on the “Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop” electoral list. Could this mean that you will stay in the same position after the elections as Speaker of the Parliament, or would you join the government? What is closer to you, personally?
“All of us who uphold the policies of the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, the candidates on the electoral list ‘Serbia Must Not Stop’, which gathers together a broad popular movement of people for whom Serbia comes first, as well as everyone else – those serious and responsible people, who wish well to all the families in Serbia, and respect for all the mothers and protection for all the children – have just one common goal: To save Serbia and make sure it makes even faster headway into the future. To belong to that policy, to fight for it anywhere – that’s the greatest honour in the world. The positions and posts have always been the concern of those others, so they have turned their parties into tycoon companies. They did the same thing with Serbia – back then, but never again. Never will honest people allow themselves to look even a bit like them, and we especially won’t allow our country to be privatized again and then plundered no end.”
Part of the opposition is convinced they can win the Belgrade election. Speaking of Belgrade, certain right-wing parties are open about joining hands with the pro-European opposition. What is your take on that? What are their chances in the capital?
“They have declared themselves winners already, way to go. The same thing happened the last time, and the time before last, so it turned out that they had only been lying to their voters. Now they’re lying to them through their teeth – just think back to what the protest looked like: ‘We’re staying with you on the Gazela Bridge until the demands are met,’ and then they’re the first to run home. ‘We’re coming in September in numbers greater than ever,’ and then they go to seaside resorts. ‘We’re overthrowing the government in a Parliament session,’ and then they don’t show up for the vote and go somewhere else to spend the weekend… Eventually they insulted the parents of the murdered children, granting themselves the privilege to turn the tragically lost lives into their personal promotion, the election campaign, and a means for their bosses Đilas and Šolak to turn a profit. So much about their ‘beliefs’. These fake ‘right-wingers’, from DPS, through Dveri and what is left of Zavetnici, to the non-existent POKS (The Movement to Renew The Kingdom of Serbia) stood at attention before Đilas last year in a bid to plunder Belgrade together. If they try again, that’s no news. Let them try – the people will have their say.”
And what are the chances the opposition has in the state election, given that the situation there is similar – a collaboration of almost everyone in the opposition and the so-called transitional government are being announced?
“It’s all the same there too. All those who swear and ‘pledge’ to free Kosovo with rifles (as long as the rifles are carried by other people’s children, not themselves), to defend Russia to the last drop of blood and sweat (other people’s blood and other people’s sweat, of course) – they all say that if they only get a chance, they will form a government with those for whom Kosovo is independent; they say that Serbs are genocidal, and ask every day that sanctions against Russia be imposed, as well as against anyone else once their foreign bosses order them to do so. So much for their full ‘patriotism’, it’s great that the people can see that. With such people, everything boils down to power and money – the money they expect to be divided amongst them by their boss Đilas, which is what they used to do when he was in power and stuffed 619 million euros in his accounts, while taking care of these yes-men through Kolubara and numerous ministries. What would that transitional government do except writing off Kosovo, writing off The Republic of Srpska, branding Serbs, and imposing sanctions? They are ‘transitional’ as it is, without power: Every day they go from one former regime’s party to another, vie among each other and complain about each other, call each other thieves and fascists… You don’t need a government for that sort of ‘transitionality’, they already have it. And that’s the only thing they’re good at.”
Kurir.rs/I. Žigić
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