Bravo Demands Resignation of Novi Sad Mayor Micin

Councillors of the Bravo Civic Movement delivered demands for the resignation of Mayor Zarko Micin (SNS) and City Assembly Speaker Dina Vucinic at City Hall in Novi Sad on Wednesday, October 28. Micin turned down the demand in front of reporters, saying: “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The trigger is the outcome of the snap parliamentary elections of October 25. The results are not final until the Republic Electoral Commission proclaims them, a point Micin himself raised in his reply.

Who signed the demand and what does it say?

The demand was signed by Marija Srdic, the legal representative of GP Bravo, and Miran Pogacar, head of the Serbia Center-Bravo Novi Sad councillors’ group. Danas reports that four councillors submitted the initiative. Micin claims the opposite: that the signatories are only two of Bravo’s four councillors.

Pogacar cited the election result and Micin’s 20 months at the head of the city, along with projects such as “Novi Sad on the Water”. According to Danas, the demands state that the Student List won 63.2 percent of the vote in Novi Sad, on a turnout of 73 percent. N1 and Insajder do not report those figures, and the only source for them is that paper.

Reports differ on Miran Pogacar’s words. N1 quotes him this way:

“It is your moral and political responsibility to resign today”

Danas records a longer version of the same message:

“It is a moral and political responsibility to resign, this government is steeped in corruption and crime. I suggest you resign and, as a lawyer, start preparing your defense.”

According to Insajder, Pogacar also said that in “these 20 months” Micin “was only the SNS mayor, never the mayor of all citizens of Novi Sad”. Insajder adds that he announced criminal complaints. N1 reports that Pogacar and Srdic left the hall as soon as he finished his statement.

What does Marija Srdic want?

Srdic explained why they waited three days after the election:

“Since that did not happen, we will submit the resignation demands to Micin and Dina Vucinic.”

She called for early local elections to be held as soon as possible and urged employees of institutions and public companies to send in evidence of violations of the law. Srdic also claimed that arrests in Novi Sad are made on the orders of Zagorka Dolovac. That is her claim, and no source confirms it.

How did Micin respond?

He called the demand a “spectacle” and, according to Insajder, “nonsense”. He rejected it, saying that only a majority of councillors in the City Assembly can remove him. Danas carries his statement:

“Should I resign because the Bravo councillors’ group demands it, the two of them who signed, not even all four are signed here? I wouldn’t dream of it. Not only because of that. The second reason I won’t resign is that this is being demanded by people who have absolutely no legitimacy.”

He added that those people are not on the Student List and that the students “never mentioned them as any relevant factor in the opposition”. In his words, the Student List won the national election, not the local one, so the SNS and he himself hold legitimacy. He told N1: “I will not step down as long as I have the support of a majority of councillors, and I will keep working in the interest of the citizens of Novi Sad”. Danas also attributes to him the sentence “I have the support of the Assembly, I wouldn’t dream of resigning.”

Micin announced that he will propose a budget, “a nice budget, with new things and new benefits for the citizens of Novi Sad”. He says he will decide on staying in office once the new government is formed. He is ready to talk with representatives of the Student List once the new National Assembly is constituted:

“If I resigned now, I would plunge the city into a legal vacuum and we would not be able to adopt the budget, and I will not do that.”

Dina Vucinic’s response to the demand directed at her was not reported in the coverage we reviewed.