Sapic Dismissal: SPS Waits on Party, Session Due by Oct. 22

A day after the request for an extraordinary session on dismissing Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic was filed, the city’s ruling coalition has begun to respond. Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) councilor Toma Fila said that, with parliamentary elections on October 25, this is not the time to vote on a recall, while the head of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) caucus, Aleksandar Mirkovic, declined to speak. The final deadline is known: the speaker of the City Assembly must schedule the session by October 22, three days before the elections.

The request was submitted on Wednesday, October 7, by 41 councilors. Of those, 21 are from the Kreni-Promeni movement, and the remaining signatures came from councilors of the Green-Left Front, We, the Strength of the People, the Citizens’ Freedom Movement, the Democratic Party, the People’s Movement of Serbia, the New Face of Serbia and Ecological Uprising. City Assembly speaker Nikola Nikodijevic, from the SPS, has 15 days to schedule the session. Danas reports that he has not answered its question about his next steps or whether the SPS can be expected to support the dismissal.

What did Toma Fila say?

Fila spoke to Danas about the request, and N1 relayed his statement. In his words, the party bodies should be the first to decide on Sapic:

“I think that before giving an opinion on this, we should wait for the decision on Sapic in the party bodies. Then we will make a decision.”

For the SPS this is no small matter: the opposition does not have enough votes for a dismissal on its own, which is why it has called on the Socialists to vote with it.

Who stayed silent, and who spoke?

The editors of the weekly Vreme tried to get an answer from Mirkovic, but he apologized and said he could not speak. Vreme reports that it received no answers from SNS councilor Nebojsa Bakarec either, nor from Fila. So Fila did not respond to Vreme’s inquiry, but he did speak to Danas.

On Tuesday, October 6, SNS and SPS councilors voted down a proposal to put Sapic’s dismissal on the agenda of the regular session. On Monday, October 5, Ana Brnabic, the SNS commissioner for Belgrade, said the public will see in the future what the SNS does with Sapic as its member. Apart from a verbal condemnation and reprimand from Aleksandar Vucic, the SNS candidate for prime minister, Danas has so far recorded no political consequences.

Citizens’ Freedom Movement councilor Stefan Simic reads the silence as a tactic. He told Vreme:

“They are silent and that is part of the tactic, because they believe it shows strength, even though they do not understand that it is exactly the opposite.”

He added to the same weekly: “They are not removing Sapic because they like him, they have obviously chosen a strategy of not touching him at this moment, even though they clearly see how far he has ruined the city.” Simic also claims that Sapic admitted he was the one who started the conflict, and he hopes Sapic is “counting his last days at the head of the city.”

To Danas, Simic said he expects the authorities to try to drag the issue out and leave it for after the elections:

“It is clear that the SNS wants the case to be forgotten, instead of establishing the political responsibility of Aleksandar Sapic, and it is up to us to keep insisting that the session for which we submitted signatures is held as soon as possible, so that the campaigns for the parliamentary and presidential elections do not completely cover this topic and allow a thug to remain at the head of Belgrade.”

He added: “That is why we will insist that his dismissal is debated and that every councilor states clearly where they stand.”

What do other opposition councilors expect?

Milos Pavlovic, a councilor from the People’s Movement of Serbia, tells Danas that the ruling parties will schedule the session, but only because the law obliges them to. He does not expect a dismissal:

“But judging by Ana Brnabic’s statement, I do not expect Sapic to be dismissed, because for the SNS that would be a bigger political loss than the damage Sapic has already done himself.”

Pavlovic recalls that the SNS has twice considered removing Sapic but backed off for political reasons. Of the coalition partner he says: “As for the SPS, they will stand firmly beside the coalition partner that dictates all decisions, including the decision on the proposal to dismiss the mayor.”

Why is a dismissal being sought?

The trigger was an event on September 28. According to the request’s rationale, Sapic attacked New Belgrade municipal assembly councilor Tatjana Micic and her husband that day near the building where they live, in Bezanijska Kosa. Micic told N1 that same evening that she met Sapic on a walk and that, after a verbal argument, he hit her and her husband on the nose.

The accounts of the injuries are not identical. Danas writes that a fracture of her left nasal bone was established. The Kreni-Promeni movement stated that she underwent surgery for fractures of the nasal bone and jaw, which N1 relayed.

With the deadline approaching, one question remains that nobody has yet answered: will the session be scheduled before October 22, and will the decision of the party bodies that Fila is waiting for arrive before it. Until then, the only certainty is that the opposition lacks the votes to dismiss the mayor, and that the SPS has said neither that it will nor that it won’t.