Djokic Announces Serbia or Mafia Campaign Expansion

University of Belgrade Rector Vladan Djokic told a crowd in Vrbas on Saturday evening that the Serbia or Mafia? campaign becomes a cycle of student and citizen rallies starting next week. He spoke at a gathering organized by the Vrbas Citizens’ Assembly, in front of several hundred people, in a town where students and citizens were attacked at a protest outside the local offices of the Serbian Progressive Party almost exactly a year earlier.

The campaign is a series of events focused on public safety, the rule of law, and institutional accountability. The name is not new. Rallies titled “Serbia or Mafia? How to Get to Freedom?” were held in Nis and at Medijana from August 3 to 6, featuring historians, lawyers, and doctors. What Djokic announced in Vrbas is that the student movement is taking over the series starting next week and expanding it beyond a single city.

What the Rector Expects From the Rallies

Djokic described his trip to Vrbas as a chance to talk with people who have been leading local protests for more than a year.

“Tonight’s gathering is an opportunity for me to meet the people of Vrbas, to offer them support, to thank them for the fight they have been waging here against the authorities for a year and a half now, wanting change to happen,” he said.

He described linking local citizens’ assemblies with the student movement as a precondition for any result.

“I think that synergy between students and the public is something that has to be maintained, and only that way can a positive outcome be reached,” Djokic said.

He summed up the goal of the rallies in a single sentence. “This is, in a way, a form of strengthening the student movement and the fight to get to elections as soon as possible,” he said.

One Year Since the Attack Outside SNS Headquarters

The rally was held four days before the anniversary of August 12, 2025, when a crowd gathered outside the Serbian Progressive Party’s offices in Vrbas attacked students and citizens who were protesting there that day. According to footage and reports from the scene, bottles, rocks, and pyrotechnics were thrown at the assembled crowd.

Police were present at the time and held a line between the two groups but did not intervene. Vrbas has since remained a reference point that both students and opposition groups cite when discussing violence in smaller towns.

The choice of Vrbas to launch the new campaign is therefore no accident. A cycle of rallies billed around public safety and the rule of law is starting from a town where public violence was never followed by a prosecution visible to the public.

Why Djokic Links the Election Delay to Polls

The rector described the state of society as split into two blocs.

“There is clearly polarization in society. On one side there is a regime that is what it is, that is autocratic, that has its own media, and through those media does not allow the real truth to come out to all residents and all citizens,” Djokic said.

He placed the other side of that divide with the student movement. “On the other side we have the student movement, which has in a way alarmed the public and which, according to many polls, has majority support greater than the authorities have,” he said.

From that he drew an explanation for why elections have not yet been called. “That is also the reason why elections still haven’t been called, and that is the reason why the student movement will keep gaining more and more support from citizens in the future,” the rector said.

Djokic did not specify which surveys he had in mind, who conducted them, or when they were published.

The List, the Profession, and Trust in Universities

At the same rally, the rector said all candidates proposed on the student list would work with the relevant profession. The list previously had 99 names put forward that entered a vetting process, which we reported on when the list was first formed.

Djokic also said that, despite the attacks, the authorities have not managed to erode public trust in higher education in Serbia. He raised that point in response to pressure on universities that has continued since winter, ranging from withheld funding to public attacks on individual faculties and professors.

The first rallies under the new name have been announced for next week, with no schedule of cities or dates released yet. The next date already known is August 12, the anniversary of the Vrbas attack.