Opposition Split: Tepic Downplays the Student List

Marinika Tepic, deputy leader of the Party of Freedom and Justice, said on the talk show “Utisak nedelje” that, in her view, a large number of people do not want to vote for the student list even if the opposition urges them to. That assessment, made just days before Vidovdan, landed at a moment when the opposition camp still shows no sign of a deal to contest the elections together. Within opposition circles, the remark was read as a sign of a deep rift between the established opposition and the student movement that carried most of the street pressure over the past year.

For the first time so openly from the level of a party leadership, Tepic questioned the capacity of a list many regard as the opposition’s strongest card. The student movement, which has so far avoided formal party politics, now finds itself defending its own prospects against criticism that comes not from the government, but from the other side of the opposition spectrum.

Why is the opposition fracturing now?

The answer lies in the arithmetic of the electoral cycle. Three years of street pressure, blockades, and protests have brought the opposition to a point where it must decide how to face the ballot box, and that is exactly where the differences begin. The student list runs as a non-party force with high trust, the pro-European opposition gathered in the so-called EU5 bloc relies on its infrastructure and recognizable leaders, while the right has its own electorate that overlaps with neither of the first two columns on ideology or program.

Merging those columns into a single list would require concessions that, judging by the signals so far, no side is ready to offer. The students fear that joining a coalition with party actors would dilute the credibility they earned outside politics. The parties, for their part, do not want to dissolve into a movement that lacks a classic organization or an electoral machine. Tepic’s remark, however sharp it sounded, in fact exposes that calculus: part of the party opposition judges that running alone carries less risk than marching under someone else’s banner.

The most likely outcome, as things stand, is a contest in three separate columns. Such a result suits the government, because a fragmented opposition vote clears the threshold less easily and builds a parliamentary majority less easily. Polls, however, give the student list a position the established opposition cannot afford to ignore: if elections were held today, that list would, according to available measurements, win more votes than any single list on the scene.

What comes before Vidovdan?

Vidovdan, June 28, has for years been a symbolic date in Serbian politics for big announcements and gatherings, so this year’s calendar fills with expectation too. The question is no longer whether the opposition will run as one, since that train appears to be already pulling away, but how much its disunity will cost on election day. Every day without a deal hardens the three-column scenario and narrows the room for any late merger.

Tepic did not specify whether her assessment also reflects an official party stance on running alone, nor had the student movement responded to her words by the time of writing. Within the opposition, however, it is well understood that publicly downplaying a rival’s chances rarely goes unanswered, especially in the heat of a campaign. For voters who have demanded unity from the opposition for years, every crack on that side becomes an argument for the other.

Can an opposition split across three columns defeat the government, or does each separate list in fact play against the shared goal?