Natasa Basta Djordjevic Quits SNS Over Rally Quotas
The former principal of a school in Debrc near Vladimirci claims municipal leaders set mandatory rally quotas for school heads, and says she will run for municipal president.
Natasa Basta Djordjevic, the former principal of the Jovan Cvijic Elementary School in Debrc near Vladimirci, announced that she has left the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), where she says she spent about ten years. She posted the statement on her Facebook profile on October 13, and it was picked up by Sabacke Novosti and Nova.rs.
Basta Djordjevic claims the municipal leadership in Vladimirci sets mandatory rally quotas for school principals. She also announced that she is accepting an offer from Rasim Ljajic to run for municipal president of Vladimirci in the next local elections.
Resignation in November 2025
By her account, she submitted her resignation as principal on November 6, 2025. She stayed in the post until April 29, 2026, when, as she puts it, a candidate from another school was found who agreed to take over as acting principal. After the resignation, she claims, municipal officials cut off all communication with her.
She says she did not hide the reason for resigning behind a line about personal reasons:
“I did not hide behind the cliche ‘for personal reasons.’ I stated the reasons, read them out publicly at the Teachers’ Council, and sent the same text to the School Administration in Valjevo.”
So the written explanation also reached the Valjevo School Administration. Basta Djordjevic says she resigned “because of pressure from the municipal leadership, with ever more frequent trips where one ‘should’ be, and the mandatory quotas that every principal gets for rallies.”
She added that, amid the heated political climate at the time, she no longer wanted to put herself or the people in her staff into a situation of humiliation, insults or physical confrontation:
“In a boiling political situation, I no longer wanted to put either myself or the people from my staff in a position of humiliation, insults or a physical altercation.”
She also recalled August 3, 2024. On that day, she says, she spoke in Loznica at the anniversary of the military operation “Storm” at the request of municipal representatives. “I want to remind the ‘municipal people’ that they begged me to speak in Loznica for the anniversary of ‘Storm,’ on 3. 8. 2024, because it would mean a lot for the municipality of Vladimirci,” she said. She described that speech as stressful and hard because of her own experiences and memories of the refugee columns.
A 25-minute delay as the trigger
The latest statement, she explains, was prompted by an incident the day before. On her way to work she stopped at a pharmacy for medication for high blood pressure. Her director, she says, knew about her health problems, but called her during the morning to say that representatives of the Vladimirci municipality had asked him why she was late. She reached the school at 8.25, 25 minutes after the start of the working day, and says part of that time was lost to roadworks.
She used the episode to raise questions about the municipality’s obligations to employees of the Jovan Cvijic school:
- two colleagues have been waiting a year for solidarity aid after the death of a parent
- jubilee awards are owed to employees
- travel expenses for August and September have not been paid
She also asks whether employees are marked absent when they attend rallies or work at stands during working hours, and how such absences are recorded and justified. She further claimed that the municipality’s head of finance is employed full time in the municipality while teaching some classes at a high school. She also asked why the municipal account is blocked and linked that to the conduct of the same official.
How she describes her career and candidacy
Basta Djordjevic says she was hired in 2000 by applying to a public competition, as a candidate in a shortage field, and that she never used political connections. During her seven years as head of the school, she claims, she did not increase her property thanks to the position. In the statement she wrote:
“I am a principal who never took money for hiring, when there were even set prices for a fixed-term job and for a permanent one.”
She said she is proud of the education she earned despite interruptions caused by war and displacement, and declared: “I did not graduate from a ‘car-trunk’ university, I did not get my job through politics, I embezzled nothing and stole nothing, nor did I acquire any unlawful financial gain.”
She explained her decision to run this way: “For all these reasons I left the party, and now I am telling you publicly that I will accept the offer of Mr. Rasim Ljajic to be the candidate for municipal president in the next local elections for only one reason.” That reason, she said, is “to prove to you that it is possible to work honestly and truly in the interest of all citizens, and not of one’s own pockets.”
What is known about the municipality’s response
All the allegations come solely from Basta Djordjevic, and their merit depends on documentation and statements from the people she names. The Vladimirci municipality’s response to these claims has not been published, and the reports of the statement do not name the municipal president or the head of finance to whom the claims about outside employment refer. She tied her candidacy to the “next local elections” in Vladimirci, without giving a date.
