Students set two demands ahead of Vidovdan protest

Students in the blockade have put two precise demands before the Serbian government, with a clear deadline and a clear consequence. They issued the demands ahead of a protest they themselves called, titled “See you on Vidovdan,” set for Saturday, June 28 in Belgrade. The deadline for meeting both demands runs out that same Saturday, at 9 p.m.

The first demand concerns constitutional matters. Students are asking the government to send a reasoned proposal to the president of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly in line with Article 109 of the Constitution, so that snap parliamentary elections can be called. The second demand is operational: that the government turn to the Interior Ministry to end a planned ruling-party rally in Pionir Park and on Nikola Pasic Square, invoking Article 18 of the Law on Public Assembly.

With that, the students’ message has moved from the ground of symbolism to the ground of concrete institutional steps. Instead of broad slogans, the government now faces two measurable actions, with a date and an hour by which a response is expected.

What exactly do the two demands mean?

Article 109 of the Constitution provides that the National Assembly is dissolved by the president of the Republic, on a reasoned proposal from the government. By invoking that article, students are asking that the initiative for snap elections come from the executive itself, rather than remain a matter of street pressure. That is the politically heaviest part of the demand, since it asks the government for a step that leads toward an early end to the current parliamentary majority’s mandate.

The second demand is narrower and more technical. Article 18 of the Law on Public Assembly sets out the conditions under which the competent authority may ban or end a public gathering. Students want the government to turn to the Interior Ministry on that basis, because the authorities have announced their own rally for the same period in the city center, in the area around the National Assembly, in Pionir Park and on Nikola Pasic Square. It is the same part of Belgrade where the student protests gather, which makes the question of two parallel rallies a matter of both security and space.

Students said that, if the demands are not met by the deadline, they expect citizens to be ready to take all existing measures of civil disobedience. With that wording, the protest announcement gained a conditional sequel: the Vidovdan gathering becomes a point at which the authorities’ response is measured, not just a date for assembly.

Where does the other side stand?

The authorities are organizing a rally of their own in parallel. The Serbian Progressive Party has announced a large gathering in Belgrade around Vidovdan, in the area in front of the National Assembly and on Nikola Pasic Square, that is, at the very locations the students’ second demand asks to be cleared. The two rallies are thus, at least by the announcements, set for the same city, the same part of the center and the same window of time.

For now there is no official government response to the two student demands, nor any sign of whether the proposal to dissolve parliament will be considered at all within the set deadline. It also remains an open question how the Interior Ministry will handle two announced rallies at nearby locations in the same period.

The deadline the students set narrows the room for delay: by Saturday, June 28 at 9 p.m. it will be known whether the government answered the demands, stayed silent or rejected them. In that calculation, in your view, who benefits more from a clearly set date and hour?