Environmental Uprising Negotiates Joint Ticket With Aleksic

Environmental Uprising leader and member of parliament Aleksandar Jovanovic Cuta told N1 on Wednesday, August 5, that his movement is currently closest to an agreement on running in the elections together with the People’s Movement of Serbia, led by Miroslav Aleksic. Alongside Aleksic, he named Milos Parandilovic and New Face of Serbia, as well as the movement led by doctor Dragan Milic.

With that, one of the opposition leaders named concrete partners for a joint ticket for the first time. Until now, calls for unity from the same circle had come without an address, leaving it unclear how many separate lists the opposition would even field.

“Right now we are closest to an agreement to run with Miki Aleksic, Milos Parandilovic, and Dr. Milic is also in the picture. But all of that stays open for building a bigger column, for the opposition to unite. Realistically, the two biggest lists are the SNS and the student list, but you have to allow that someone might want to vote for the opposition too. What if we’re short those five or six percent? Who gets blamed then?” Jovanovic said.

Cuta added that he will not stop calling on the rest of the opposition to join, because he believes power cannot change hands without agreement and coordination.

Distrust that has lingered since December

Discussing relations within the opposition, Jovanovic said a rift opened after the December elections that has never really closed. He traced part of that distrust to the Serbia Against Violence coalition and to a shift in position on election conditions.

“The opposition shot itself in the head, I mean Serbia Against Violence, when part of the opposition said election conditions had to change, and now suddenly nobody cares about election conditions anymore, it’s just let’s bring down Vucic. I still think everyone should stand on one side, but since that isn’t going to happen, because the students distanced themselves from an opposition they see as tainted and worse than Vucic, then we have to talk,” he said.

His conclusion from that is not one ticket at any cost, but a minimum of communication. “We don’t have to run on one list, but it’s abnormal that you won’t even talk,” Jovanovic said.

Why won’t Environmental Uprising join the pro-European bloc?

Because, in Cuta’s words, it disagrees with the European Union over the resettlement issue in Gornje Nedeljice. He insists every party should state where it stands, and he draws that line on the very issue that gave rise to Environmental Uprising in the first place.

“The opposition has to declare who it’s siding with. A pro-European bloc has formed, but there’s also a part that isn’t for the EU. We have a problem with the EU, which put resettlement in Gornje Nedeljice on its agenda, Kosta said so himself when he was here, and that isn’t acceptable to us,” Jovanovic said.

That explains his choice of partners. Aleksic, Parandilovic and Milic come from a wing of the opposition not defined by EU integration, so they don’t clash with Environmental Uprising on the issue it treats as a red line.

The math behind five to six percent

Cuta also raised the question of votes that go to waste if the opposition fails to reach a deal. He put the figure at five to six percent, which by his estimate could decide the outcome, and on that basis he rejects the idea that running in elections is itself a betrayal.

“Nobody should stop anyone else from running in elections. An atmosphere has formed here where, the moment you even think about running, you’re supposed to be burned at the stake,” he said.

Environmental Uprising declined in July to give a blank endorsement to the student list, though even then it left room for talks. A few weeks earlier, Cuta had appeared in Nis alongside Aleksic, Parandilovic and Milic to publicly call on the opposition to unite. The same foursome now emerges as the core of the negotiations, which makes Wednesday’s statement a continuation rather than a reversal.

Narrowing the field isn’t an isolated move within the opposition. We wrote about a similar boundary being drawn when Branimir Nestorovic ruled out a coalition with Aleksandar Vulin’s socialists, from the opposite end of the opposition spectrum. Two different figures, weeks apart, have named in advance who they won’t run with rather than who they will.

What Cuta’s statement leaves unanswered is who else joins the column. He insists everything remains open, but no party outside the named foursome has been identified as a negotiating partner. Until that changes, the opposition is headed to the polls in at least three separate columns: the student list, this core built around Environmental Uprising and the People’s Movement of Serbia, and the rest, who have yet to say where they belong.