Srdanovic Urges Citizens to Become Poll Watchers
The lead candidate of the Student List tells Danas there are enough poll watchers, but never too many, and rules out a coalition with regime parties.
Ilija Srdanovic, lead candidate of the Student List “Students Win,” has called on all citizens to sign up as poll watchers at polling stations for the October 25 election. He made the appeal in an interview with Danas, and it was also carried by N1 and Nedeljnik.
Srdanovic is a cardiologist from Novi Sad and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, and he heads the list. He says the list has enough poll watchers, but that this does not mean others should stay out.
What did Srdanovic say about monitoring the vote?
Asked how he expects the election to look and whether electoral manipulation can be prevented, Srdanovic answered:
“I am sure nobody thinks we are heading into a fair fight. We are not fighting a political party, but a mafia that has captured the institutions and will try everything to hold on to power. We are aware of that and we are ready for it.”
He then spelled out more precisely what he is asking of citizens:
“Monitoring is key. We will do our best to protect every vote, so that when the polling stations close, the voice of the majority of Serbia can be heard clearly. We have enough poll watchers, but in this country there are never too many. That is why I call on all citizens to sign up as poll watchers in the upcoming election.”
He closed the message with the words: “It is time for all of us to take matters into our own hands, and for everyone at their own polling station to be the guardian of their own vote and of others’.”
He says the list is running its campaign without money or media space: “We don’t have billboards across the whole country, we don’t have television or million-euro budgets. We have people, and that is our greatest strength.” The list presents its program through public forums and the “Door to Door” campaign, and after the rally in Kragujevac he promises timely notice to the public about upcoming rallies in the larger cities.
Why does he turn down a debate with Vucic?
RTS has sent a debate invitation to Aleksandar Vucic, Srdanovic and Crnjanski, as we reported earlier. Danas asked him why Vucic is so keen on a public conversation with him. Srdanovic does not see a wish to talk in it:
“He isn’t interested in talking to me. He wants to present me as the lead candidate of the Student List, so that everything looks like a personal fight between the two of us.”
He added that the same man invites him to a debate while also calling him a thug, and that his eagerness for a debate after fourteen years of avoiding conversation is a “last straw of salvation.” He said: “We do not want to give a life jacket to a political drowning man.” There is one exception, though. “That is why I will accept when the topic is healthcare, because I can speak about it as someone who sees every day how the system works from the inside.”
What does he say about coalitions and accepting the results?
Srdanovic is convinced that Vucic’s days in power are over and that, after resigning as President of Serbia, he will not get another chance to return to the office he, as Srdanovic puts it, has longed for, that of Prime Minister. According to N1, Vucic heads the “United Serbia” list.
Asked whether Vucic will concede defeat if he loses the election, he answered that he expects political responsibility and respect for the will of the voters. “The people are the ones who decide, and when the people say clearly what they want, no individual is above that decision,” he said.
He did not want to go into detail on post-election coalitions, because the list’s focus, he says, is on making sure the Student Plan reaches every citizen. He did single out one point: “there is a red line, and that is coalitions with regime parties. There is no compromise there.” He also does not believe coalitions will be needed at all, because he expects the will of the voters to be clear.
If the Student List gets the chance to form a government, the first part of the Student Plan deals with independent institutions, the rule of law and free media. In the same interview, Srdanovic also said that the list entered the race “without a single free television station with a national frequency.”
