Kragujevac Welcomes Constitution Guardians, SNS Torch March
Two Student List cycling groups joined up in Kragujevac today after ten days on the road. An hour later, SNS supporters held a torchlit march along the Lepenica with a banner honoring Ratko Mladic.
Two cycling groups taking part in the “Constitution Guardians” campaign converged today, September 26, in Kragujevac, completing a tour that had set out from Belgrade on September 17 in two directions, north and south through Serbia. The groups reached Lepenicki Boulevard, by the Zastava high-rise, carrying a copy of Serbia’s Constitution, as part of the Student List’s campaign for the early parliamentary elections called for October 25.
Danas and N1 report that the tour lasted ten days, while Glas Sumadije and Vreme write of nine days on the road; the latter two outlets also state that riders covered more than 1,500 kilometers through towns and villages in the north and south of the country. According to Danas, the two columns merged in Kragujevac at around 5:30 p.m., half an hour behind schedule, even though the official welcome had been set for 5 p.m. and speeches for 6 p.m.
Kragujevac was chosen as the tour’s destination because it was in this city, on February 15, 1835, at the Grand National Assembly, that the Sretenje Constitution was proclaimed, the first constitution of modern Serbia. Throughout the tour, students carried a copy of the Constitution and collected signatures of support for the Student List’s program, led by Ilija Srdanovic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad.
The gathering of citizens on Lepenicki Boulevard began at 2 p.m., and from that point on police closed traffic on every street leading to the assembly site, Danas reports. Srpske Novine had earlier reported on stops along the cycling tour’s route in Novi Sad, Nis and Vranje, but not on the arrival in Kragujevac itself.
After the students spoke, several Student List candidates also addressed the crowd: psychologist Ana Mirkovic, labor law expert Mario Reljanovic, surgeon and Faculty of Medicine professor Aleksandar Cvetkovic, pedagogy professor Daliborka Puric of Uzice, Faculty of Law lecturer Jovan Vujicic of Kragujevac, and actor Tihomir Stanic, N1 reports. According to Glas Sumadije, also seen at the gathering were Jovo Bakic, who is 76th on the Student List, and former national basketball player Vladimir Stimac.
Speaking to N1 after arriving in Kragujevac, Srdanovic said the tour’s participants were not tired.
How could we be tired, we came to the place where we got our first modern Constitution, and now we are bringing the one that is in force and applies to everyone. We can promise only one thing: that it will always have to apply to everyone, that no one can be above the Constitution.
said the Student List’s leading candidate. Commenting on the welcome residents had prepared for him along the entire route, he said the atmosphere was hard to put into words.
In every village and town we passed through, we had this kind of welcome, every car, every passerby showed some emotion, and 95 percent of it was positive.
Srdanovic also said that Serbia “will not have a despotism, nor a boss of the country,” adding that the Constitution would have to apply to everyone from now on, without exception.
Police, according to Danas, prevented a banner reading “Students Are Winning” from being unfurled from the Zastava high-rise, even though this had reportedly been planned for the moment the students reached the city’s central intersection.
At the entrance to the city, near the roundabout in the Petrovac neighborhood, supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) lined both sides of the road, and the cyclists rode through between them, Glas Sumadije reports.
About an hour after the gathering ended, SNS supporters held a torchlit march on the right bank of the Lepenica, by the Old Assembly building, carrying a banner reading “Ratko Mladic, Serbian Hero” and chanting “Aco, Serb,” N1 reports. Officers of the Interior Ministry (MUP), in riot gear, blocked student sympathizers from crossing to the other bank of the river and, according to N1, did not explain to journalists how they had known about the torchlit march in advance.
We found no statement from the local SNS branch about the torchlit march in any of the sources reporting on the events in Kragujevac.
Early parliamentary elections have been called for October 25, and Kragujevac was the final stop on the ten-day tour, which, according to the Student List’s announcement, is now heading back to Belgrade with the signatures of support collected in cities across Serbia.
