Brnabic and Nikolic to Face Off Thursday on N1

N1 television is hosting the first thematic debate of the campaign ahead of Serbia’s snap parliamentary election, set for October 25, on Thursday, September 24, at 8 PM. The two women facing off are Ana Brnabic, outgoing speaker of the National Assembly and third on the Aleksandar Vucic, United Serbia list, and Mirjana Nikolic, rector of the University of Arts in Belgrade and ninetieth on the Students Win list. The topic of the first meeting is education, and the debate is moderated by N1 journalist Tatjana Aleksic.

In brief

• Debate: Thursday, September 24, 8 PM, on N1
• Topic: education
• Participants: Ana Brnabic and Mirjana Nikolic
• Moderator: Tatjana Aleksic

For Brnabic, this is her first live appearance on the channel in nine years. Her last live interview with N1 came in 2017, when she was minister of public administration and local self government. Since then she has served as prime minister and, later, as speaker of the National Assembly. She holds a master’s degree in management and marketing.

Nikolic is a full professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and rector of the University of Arts. She has said she is not running as rector but as a private citizen, and that professors entering politics does not mean politics is entering the university. Rather, she says, it means professors are standing behind their students.

That is precisely where the debate picks up an earlier exchange between the two sides. Srpske Novine previously reported that Brnabic had written to the European Parliament over a video made by the Faculty of Dramatic Arts about President Aleksandar Vucic, the same faculty where Nikolic is a full professor. Now, after that exchange from a distance, the two will sit in the same studio and answer the same questions.

N1 says the live thematic pre-election debates will not stop at education. Coming installments will cover corruption and crime, the economy, foreign policy, and the rule of law and media freedom. Alongside the debates, starting next week the channel is also introducing Tuesday and Wednesday programs at 8 PM, in which representatives of electoral lists each get half an hour to present their platform and take questions from journalists.

Arsa Stojanovic, a Faculty of Biology student representing the Serbia Wins student list, reacted to the announcement. He said:

We don’t want to sink to that tavern style atmosphere of calling each other out on social media and things like that. The debate that will happen on N1 between Ana Brnabic and rector Mirjana Nikolic is a very important step. We’ve run into a lot of criticism that we shouldn’t be entering into dialogue with them, that they should be completely ignored, Stojanovic said.

He added that the student list trusts Nikolic and does not avoid confrontation, whether with government officials or opposition figures, though he stressed that it should stay on a dignified level.

Thursday’s debate is thus the first test of the format N1 has announced for the whole campaign: a face off in which, as Nikolic herself puts it, the rector appears as a private citizen, while Brnabic returns to a chair she last sat in as a minister almost a decade ago. The next installment, the debate on corruption and crime, has no confirmed date yet, but the programs featuring list representatives begin as early as next week.