Vucic: Faculty Blockade Through Election Day Illegal
President Aleksandar Vucic said a planned faculty blockade covering election day would be illegal, and admitted it would politically benefit him if he weren't head of state.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said today, September 12, that an announced faculty blockade would be illegal, because higher education institutions, as he put it, must not be used for politics. He made the comment to reporters after touring construction work on the “Vozd Karadjordje” expressway, responding to an announcement that one faculty could be blocked during a period that includes the day of the parliamentary election.
“That is completely illegal because they must not be used for politics,” Vucic said.
What has been decided so far
A concrete timeframe exists, for now, at only one address. Students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade voted for a blockade that, according to what they told Nova.rs last night, would begin on October 1 and run through October 25, the day of the early parliamentary election. A broader decision by the student movement, with debate still pending in plenums at other faculties, has not yet been made, according to an earlier report by the FoNet agency, and no dates have been set for possible new blockades elsewhere.
In other words, what has been confirmed so far concerns a single faculty, while the rest of the higher education institutions are still weighing their own move.
Vucic: It’s a shame to waste time
The president tied his remarks to the students who, he said, want to work and study, rather than to the political outcome of the blockade itself.
“It’s a shame that the lives of those kids who want to work and study are being destroyed, because they will lose time through no fault of their own.”
He also said education is the area where the government, in his own assessment, has fallen short the most, and that Serbia lags behind the rest of Europe on that front, while Europe as a whole lags behind Asia. “A lot will change in Europe, but they have much better universities and schools there than we do,” Vucic said.
”Thanks for the gift,” but a different story as president
The part of his statement that drew the most attention concerned the political effect of the blockade itself. Vucic separated what he said he would say as a citizen from what he must say as president.
“On the other hand, politically speaking, the only thing I can say is that if I weren’t president of the Republic, I would say thanks for such a gift. But as president of the Republic I have to say that I regret that my job is something else, and that is to take care of our children’s education, not how to win the elections.”
In doing so, the president effectively acknowledged that a faculty blockade ahead of the election would, in purely political terms, work in his favor, while at the same time insisting that such thinking must not guide his office.
A date that remains open
For now, only the blockade at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering has been confirmed, running from October 1 to 25. Whether other higher education institutions will join that move, and whether the same timeframe will be repeated in plenums that have yet to convene, should, based on announcements so far, become clearer before October 1, when the blockade at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering is currently set to begin. Until then, the president’s statement remains the government’s only official position on an announcement that, according to the students themselves, coincides in time with election day.
