Vucic Accuses Rivals of Terror, Announces SNS Shake-Up

Aleksandar Vucic addressed the public from the headquarters of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) on Thursday, October 29, starting at 11 a.m. It was his first appearance since the parliamentary elections, at a press conference held on party premises. As leader of the “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list, he accused the election winners of “revolutionary terror” and announced that SNS will choose new leadership.

SNS announced the address a day earlier in a statement saying Vucic would respond, among other things, to a report in the British paper The Times about an alleged coup plan. The broadcasts we reviewed did not mention The Times. Kurir, Informer and Srbija Danas describe him in their coverage as the leader of the opposition.

What did Vucic say about the first three days after the election?

Vucic claims his list conceded the result on Sunday, October 25, at 9:30 p.m. and congratulated its opponents. “At 9:30 p.m. on October 25, as befits a serious political organization, we conceded the election result,” he said. Since then, by his account, terror has been under way, and he found examples in the media, at slava feasts and in municipalities:

“Over the past 72 hours, instead of that, we are witnessing naked, genuine revolutionary terror, just as they announced. When I talk about this revolutionary terror, it shows itself in the following way. In what they, look at the hypocrisy and the terrible lie, call the liberation of the media. So, everyone who does not praise them, and does not say the plenum is God, has to be removed.”

He then turned to slava feasts. “Since 1945 it has never happened that someone barges into somebody’s slava, and they did it in four places,” Vucic said, adding that on the day of St. Petka a priest was prevented from reading a prayer. He placed attacks on people in several municipalities: “In Lazarevac, Rakovica, Zemun, many other municipalities across Serbia, they did the very same thing.” The articles we reviewed contain no independent confirmation of these claims.

Two days earlier, at the party’s slava on October 27, Vucic had said there would be no dialogue if Informer were shut down. Today he claimed that Informer had been raided and that Dragan J. Vucicevic had been pressed for an apology:

“They are not ready to accept victory, just as they were not ready to accept defeat. They were ready to accept only blood. They feel good only if someone shows full submission and humility. That is why they tried to get an ‘apologize, apologize’ out of Dragan J. Vucicevic.”

He described the methods as “such thuggish, Gestapo-style tricks we have not seen here since 1945.” Novosti records that passage differently, as “Gestapo-style mafia tricks,” so the exact wording from the broadcast cannot be established.

What did he say about the media and about Europe?

Vucic says he never shut down a single television station, even though he was called a monster, a product of the snake pit and a criminal. “And they were never even sued, let alone had someone go and liberate them,” he said, according to Kurir. B92 carries the same passage in somewhat fuller form: “They have never lost a single lawsuit for insulting anyone, let alone the President of the Republic.”

To criticism about media funding from Telekom, he answered with questions: “And who financed N1 and Nova S? Who financed SBB? In billions of euros, not in half a million euros.” He asked Europeans for something in return: “We will ask Europeans and everyone else not to close down a single television station.” He also said that Manja Grcic and Bojana Mladjenovic were forced to resign from RTS.

On the balance of power, he recalled the seat count: “I don’t know whether they understood that the opposition has 104 deputies, and that they were elected from a single list.” He said he would not back down: “It’s just that we will defend ourselves and fight. They have to know that.” Elsewhere he added: “It will be hard, don’t think this will last a short time.” Novosti’s account also includes the sentence “They will never be able to silence me.”

As an example of pressure, he cited the arrest of the director of Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj Gymnasium, who, according to Vucic, was held for 48 hours because he did not carry out a court decision to reinstate an employee. “He was appointed to that post in 2002,” Vucic said, then added that the director had “faithfully served that school” for 24 years and that his only problem was that he “did not want to allow that school to be turned into Taliban-style political teaching.”

What changes at SNS?

Vucic announced that new party leadership will be elected, with changes to the main board and the presidency. Novosti records no deadlines or names.

What did he say in the October 28 video message?

The day before, on Wednesday, October 28, Vucic posted a video message on Instagram, three days after the election. He opened it with the words: “Dear people, for three days now we have had the implementation of genuine revolutionary terror.” As examples he named raids on television stations, on the premises of “Srbijavoda” and on slava feasts. He compared today’s events with those of 2000:

“Back then, too, the worst came to power during that time. Now those worse than them have come.”

He added: “They think they can break all people with threats. They have broken many, and many more they will break.” Then he spoke about his associates: “And I see how even those I worked with for five, ten and 15 years are slowly stepping aside, and they all have reasons to be angry and offended.” Kurir records the same sentence in different words, so Politika’s version is the one carried here word for word.

The sharpest part of the message was aimed at Jovo Bakic, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and a candidate of the Student List for deputy. “Today Jovo Bakic, too, has broken what they promised,” Vucic said, then quoted words he attributes to Bakic: “We must arrest Vucic, you know, maybe there is something there, and something will come of it.” His reply was:

“Well, let me tell you, you idiot: it is better to be in prison than to sit next to you.”

Vucic explained that he said it “only so that you, ordinary people, understand well how ready I am for sacrifice.” We found no response from Bakic, nor any confirmation that he said the quoted words, in the articles we reviewed, so the claim is reported as Vucic presented it.

He also touched on the new authorities through the institutions: “They have not preserved a single institution, but have set out to tear everything down, outside the institutions.” On the prosecution, he said:

“They sent four prosecutors, among them Natasa Krivokapic, who all but sent me love letters at one time, to check in the prosecution office how the cases of the sound cannon and everything else stand. There was never any sound cannon. Shame on you, you liars.”

Kurir records the last words as “you scum.” None of the articles reviewed contains a response from the prosecutor.

He ended the message by pledging not to give up: “I will carry on bravely for as long as I breathe,” he said, and added: “And it doesn’t matter from which position.” Kurir also quotes him as saying “I will resist them for all the evil they have done to this country over the past two years.” He closed the address with “Long live Serbia!”

On October 28, the Republic Electoral Commission ordered a rerun of voting at 53 polling stations on Sunday, November 1.