Knez Mihailova: SNS Stand Takes Over Student Protest Spot
Blockading students had announced a 7 p.m. talk with citizens at Ruski Car, but SNS supporters set up a stand there instead, named United Serbia, the same name floated for the party's election list.
Supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) set up a stand called “United Serbia” on Friday evening, August 28, in front of the Ruski Car restaurant on Knez Mihailova Street, in the exact spot and at the exact time where blockading students had announced their own event.
Students from higher education institutions had organized an action called “We’re Sharing the Victory” for that evening: handing out flyers laying out parts of their program for a change of government, covering health care, education and other topics. For Knez Mihailova, one of two locations in the Stari Grad municipality, they had announced a 7 p.m. start. At the same time, in the same place, supporters of the ruling party occupied the space students had planned to use for talking with citizens. As a result, students ended up handing out flyers while walking down the street, instead of stopping in one place as originally announced.
Where the action took place
“We’re Sharing the Victory” wasn’t a single stop but a staggered schedule spanning the whole day and several cities. From 4 p.m., students were in the Main Street in Zemun, from 4:30 p.m. at the Batajnica train station, from 5 p.m. at the corner of Vojislava Ilica and Gospodara Vucica streets in Vracar, and from 6 p.m. at the Ustanicka tram terminus, in the Point shopping center in Grocka, at the market in Kaludjerica and in the center of Surcin.
Most locations opened between 7 and 9 p.m.: Bezanijska Kosa, the underpass at Usce, Delta City, the Student Cultural Center in Savski Venac, Dedinje, the Big shopping center in Karaburma, Knez Mihailova near Ruski Car, Cara Dusana street in Dorcol, Cvetni Trg, the Zemun riverside, Ada Mall, Pozeska street, Bele Vode park, and the corner of Kneza Viseslava and Ratka Mitrovica streets. Outside Belgrade, flyers were handed out in Lazarevac near the Rudarska Cesma fountain, at a Stop Shop store and out in the field in Mirosaljci, in Mladenovac in the park by the monument, and in Velika Plana in front of the movie theater. On Instagram, students announced the action briefly: “We’re handing out victory flyers on the streets. See you there.”
Three police officers were present on the street in Knez Mihailova, but according to agency reports, their intervention wasn’t needed.
Same name, announced two weeks earlier
The name of the stand, “United Serbia,” wasn’t a coincidence. SNS president Milos Vucevic said a day earlier that the party’s General Board would hold a session in two weeks to settle on the election list, and that he expects the list to be named “United Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic,” led by party president Aleksandar Vucic. The stand, set up at the exact moment students announced their talk with citizens at the same address, thus carries the name of the ruling party’s future election list, a month and a half before the campaign officially began.
None of the reports we reviewed carried a statement from the stand’s organizers or from SNS explaining why the location was specifically Knez Mihailova near Ruski Car. Meanwhile, the opposition spent that same day in parliament warning about pre-election handouts by the state. Ana Oreg, a Movement of Free Citizens lawmaker, said on the matter:
“The state must not hand out charity to citizens before elections to buy their support. It’s the state’s job to create conditions in which people can live off their own work, not wait for a one-time handout from the government.”
Srpske Vesti previously reported on blockading students searching for empty storefronts to collect signatures, with an invitation for Serbs from Kosovo to join them as well. The action in Knez Mihailova shows that, a month and a half before the campaign’s official start, the same city spaces are increasingly being split between the two sides already gearing up for the election.
The students’ next move is already scheduled: on August 29, the day after the Belgrade action, the “Serbia or Mafia” panel discussion caravan arrives in Stara Pazova, with topics covering corruption and the Law on Origin of Property. The same panel was held a day earlier, on August 28 at 7 p.m., in Irig, at 56 Vojvode Putnika Street.
