Academics Demand Opposition Drop Lists, Ponos Refuses
Four groups from Serbia's academic community are asking the opposition to back the Student List and withdraw their own lists, but Zdravko Ponos has refused to wait for allies.
Four informal groups within Serbia’s academic community, the Rebel University, the Free State University of Novi Pazar, the Network of Academic Solidarity and Engagement (MASA), and the Forum of the University of Arts, today sent an open letter to the democratic opposition parties and movements. The signatories, professors, researchers and associates from several faculties, are asking for two things: that the opposition back the Student List in the upcoming early parliamentary election, and that it not file election lists of its own.
Until now, calls for a single opposition column had come from individuals and individual parties, Bojan Pajtic among them, but today marks the first time four organized academic groups have joined that demand together. The letter arrived on the same day Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called an early parliamentary election for October 25, with a deadline of October 4 for submitting election lists.
The signatories do not hide that this is a sensitive request. They note that election conditions in Serbia are not a level playing field, and that rival campaigns within the camp seeking change could do more harm than a joint run. As the criterion for any decision on taking part in the election, they propose a single question, not the number of seats or visibility during the campaign, but whether the decision increases or decreases the chance that Serbia becomes a democratic state again. Alongside that criterion, they issue a direct appeal to the opposition parties that have so far announced or considered running on their own:
With all due respect for your work and commitment so far, we call on you to once again consider the possibility of backing the Student List in the upcoming election and not running your own lists.
The letter goes on to specify that the appeal does not mean giving up political convictions, but temporarily setting party differences aside:
We are not asking you to give up your political beliefs, nor for the differences among you to disappear. We are asking that we all set them aside for a moment so that together we can create the conditions under which we will once again be free to advocate for our ideas.
The signatories also argue that rebuilding state institutions would not mark the end of party political life, but its precondition:
Rebuilding democratic institutions is a precondition for rebuilding party political life, not its end.
The Student List is so far backed, without fielding candidates of its own, by the Democratic Party, the Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia, the Green Left Front, Kreni Promeni, Dveri, the Social Democratic Party and Dosta je bilo. The Movement of Free Citizens has gone a step further and decided not to run in the election at all, instead backing the Student Movement. The Student List itself, according to announcements so far, will field 250 candidates, will only be unveiled after the election is officially called, and will be filed by a group of 10 to 15 citizens rather than by any existing party.
Part of the opposition, however, is going its own way. The Serbian People’s Movement (NPS), the New Face of Serbia and the Ecological Uprising announced an alliance called Narodna Srbija (People’s Serbia) back on August 28, with an election list running under the name Izbor Naroda (The People’s Choice), and NPS president Miroslav Aleksic further specified on September 5 who could join that list. On the same day the academic community’s letter arrived, the Party of Freedom and Justice, Serbia Centre and the Solidarity movement unveiled their own joint list, Evropska Srbija (European Serbia), led by Marinika Tepic and Zdravko Ponos.
Reactions within the opposition came quickly and were far from uniform. The Democratic Party thanked the academic community for the letter the same day. Zdravko Ponos, by contrast, rejected the logic of waiting and relying on others’ passive support as he unveiled the European Serbia list:
This is not a time when we can wait four years for allies to land.
As of this writing, the Serbian People’s Movement had not issued a direct response to the academic community’s letter. Whether, and under what conditions, the parties currently building their own coalitions will ultimately line up behind the Student List will become clear no later than October 4, the deadline for filing election lists for the October 25 election.
