Valjevo Protest Turnout Becomes a Political Dispute

The number of people who turned out for protests in Valjevo and Novi Sad has become a political dispute, after figures from the Interior Ministry and those cited by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and outlets close to him diverged by more than three times. The disagreement followed three rallies that students organized on three consecutive days in mid August.

The protests took place in Vrbas on August 12, in Novi Sad on August 13 and in Valjevo on August 14. On August 14, after touring a construction site for the Expo project, Vucic gave his own figure while answering a question about the Novi Sad gathering and about the rally announced for Valjevo that same day.

“At most, counting all the passersby, there were 1,148, if I’m not mistaken,” the president said, immediately comparing that figure with earlier gatherings in the same city.

“At the peak there were fewer than 1,150, in Novi Sad, where crowds of 8,000 used to gather.”

The same remarks included his interpretation of the number. “That shows we are maturing as a people and that people don’t want to take part in nonsense, especially not in violence,” Vucic said.

Why do the estimates for Valjevo differ by more than three times?

Because they refer neither to the same moment nor to the same method of counting. The television station Informer reported that at 7 p.m. there were 927 people in Valjevo, including passersby who happened to be there. The Interior Ministry said the protest peaked at about 3,500 people in the city, a figure Srpske vesti has already reported.

The channel’s editor-in-chief, Dragan J. Vucicevic, put both numbers in the same piece.

“At 7 p.m., counted head by head, there were 927 of them, passersby included. The police statement says that at the very peak of the protest there were about 3,500. But even if there really were that many, it’s laughably small compared to what they had announced.”

The gap between the police estimate and the figure reported by the television station is more than threefold, even though both refer to the same rally on the same evening.

What the opposition says

Pavle Grbovic, leader of the Movement of Free Citizens, reads the numbers the opposite way from the president.

“The number of people at the protests shows that neither the weather nor the passage of time has fully drained the enthusiasm of people who are fighting for justice and truth on the streets, and on the other hand, when we compare it with the number of people Vucic manages to gather at his tent parties, it shows that his statements apparently motivate the opposition side better than piglets, oxen and folk singers do at his tent parties.”

Srdjan Milivojevic, leader of the Democratic Party, shared a photo from the Valjevo rally along with an assessment about towns outside the country’s two largest cities.

“If you saw the footage from last night’s student protest in Valjevo, it’s obvious that it was the largest rally ever held in a Serbian city outside Belgrade and Novi Sad.”

His claim, in other words, is not that this was a record gathering for Serbia as a whole, but that it was the largest in any city outside Belgrade and Novi Sad.

Counting protesters and election talk

The counting of protesters is unfolding alongside Vucic’s statements about when elections will be held. The president said he has no doubt about the outcome.

“The elections will be over quickly. We’ll win those elections more convincingly than you expect,” Vucic said.

Students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering who are taking part in the blockade responded to those statements on social media.

“Scared man, we don’t care about your daily bidding on when the elections will be. Not at all. Whenever the elections happen, we will beat you, and you will be remembered as the biggest traitor this country has ever had.”

That same day, Vucic also spoke about last year’s protests in Valjevo. Asked about testimony from participants that police had overstepped their authority at the time, he said he had no problem saying that anyone who overstepped their authority should answer for it.

“If it happened that anyone took an extra hit, two or three, from excessive force, I’m extremely sorry about that. Everyone knows how the disciplinary process and all other procedures work, and that person should answer for it,” the president said.

At this point, the only figure coming from a state authority is the one the Interior Ministry released: about 3,500 people at the peak of the Valjevo protest. The election date, the whole reason for this tally, has not yet been set.