Vucic: three cabinet sessions a day and a leaner government
The list leader and prime ministerial candidate described on Hit Tvit how his government would work: daily meetings, easier dismissals, no coalition with the blockaders.
Aleksandar Vucic, leader of the “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list and candidate for prime minister, said on Sunday evening, October 11, on the Hit Tvit show on TV Pink that as prime minister he would hold up to three cabinet sessions a day. He ruled out a coalition with what he calls the blockader movement and said he expects an absolute majority. We reported on his pledge of a 1,500 euro salary after the rally in Kragujevac, and this covers the rest of what he said in the studio.
How would the government work under his leadership?
Vucic said he does not need “a cabinet session once every seven days,” and then added:
I will hold three cabinet sessions a day if necessary.
He explained that he would amend bylaws up to three times a day when it matters. He also announced a smaller team, made up of people who “will be easier to replace than is the case today.” He would require officials to hold at least five meetings a day and to tour whole districts, not individual towns. In his words:
They will have to hold at least five meetings a day with people, business, state bodies, to listen, to talk. (…) No, then you have to visit the whole district too, all the towns, to hear what the problems are.
He did not aim his criticism only at opponents. Of his own local structures he said that “our people locally sometimes behave like bullies.”
For himself, he announced less foreign travel:
If I win the trust of the citizens and become prime minister, I will spend most of my time in the field. As I have until now. But even more. That means I will try to be abroad somewhat less, I believe other people will do more of that work, and I will devote myself to the everyday problems of citizens.
How many hospitals, how much growth, and what about wages?
Vucic estimated that 69 hospitals would cost about 1.3 billion euros. He announced special programs for five districts in the south and three and a half in the east of Serbia, because, as he put it, those regions lag behind the most. He promised to open the plants in Rekovac and Nova Varos “in two days.”
Asked about the economy, he answered that it will grow by more than four percent next year:
Next year we will have a growth rate of over 4 percent, there will be a big increase in wages and pensions, it is only important that we preserve stability.
He did not name the size of the increase. He repeated that he expects the average salary to reach 1,500 euros in four years. By his account, Serbia’s gross domestic product is now 97 billion euros, up from 49 billion earlier.
What did he say about coalitions and the election result?
On coalition options he was brief: “We will not go into a coalition with the blockader movement.” He is counting on a majority that does not tie him to smaller partners:
We will have an absolute majority and we will not depend on anyone smaller.
He sees the gap to his opponents at “hundreds of thousands of votes,” and named only one thing that could stop his victory: the possibility that foreign services carry out a serious terrorist attack, or that he is killed before the election. He faulted his opponents for focusing their campaign solely on his person:
They will lose, and not by a small margin, I will only tell you that, because hate does not win, because hate is a bad ally.
Speaking about cooperation with other parties, he said he had called on Ivica Dacic several times to run together, but concluded: “I understood that he made a decision to go alone.” The elections, he added, will therefore not be postponed. Besides Vucic, the show featured historian Goran Saric and Vuksa Dragovic, leader of the “Serbian Sovereignists,” along with Snezana Petrovic, editor of the morning program on TV Kurir, and TV Pink journalist Gordana Uzelac.
