Road blocks replace rallies as Serbian protesters require new elections

As Serbia’s anti-corruption protests enter their ninth month, they do not show signs of retreat-and instead change in their leadership, composition and tactics.

The culmination of the 140,000 strong protest of Slavidja last weekend students who have been running protests since November have announced that they will no longer lead the rallies.

They had set a deadline on Saturday so that the government could call for new elections.

When this was not met, they invited other groups to take the protest mantle – and called for a “civil disobedience” campaign by anyone who opposed President Alexandar Vucic’s leadership and his long -standing progressive party (SNS).

Since then, road blocks have popped up in the cities in Serbia this week and people are deploying bins, chairs and other improvised barriers to block the intersections in major cities, including Belgrade, Novi Sad and NIS. The associations of the locals – known as “civil meetings” – were heavily engaged.

As the police dismantle one blockade, another pops up elsewhere.

There have been dozens of arrests in recent days – along with complaints of excessive police forces. A number of students have been treated in a hospital – one with a broken clavicle – since on Wednesday, the members of Zhendarmeria entered the legal faculty of Belgrade University.

Employees also arrested high school students by protesting parents before the Central Police Department in Belgrade until their children were released.

A striking set of votes condemned police behavior. Complaints from the Association of Journalists and the Opposition Center party were compared to statements from the Bar Association and even the Serbian Orthodox Church Archbishop Grigori Durik. The EU, for its part, defined the “acts of hatred and violence” and called for peace.

Meanwhile, Belgrade obstacles continue to continue-as the subsequent chaos for traveling traveling.

A resident, while rudely notes that she has to walk 5 km (3 miles) to and from work, described the mood as more as a series of street parties than in protest.

But many observers doubt whether this approach will be more effective than the months of rallies, faculty blockades and semi-hearted common strikes.

The protest movement began with a relatively simple goal: to ensure the accountability of the disaster from last November at the Novi Sad Railway Station, when the concrete canopy in the recently renovated facility in the second city of Serbia collapsed, killing 16 people who stood under it.

The pouring of grief was instant – and outrage quickly followed.

Much of it is aimed at President Vucic.

Much of the Serbians have long been restless with his “strong” style of leadership, as he came to power in 2012, but others accepted his firm grip on state institutions and much of the media as a compromise on strong economic growth and infrastructure improvements.

The disaster of the station broke this tacit agreement.

“We’re all under the canopy” was a slogan that was often seen in banners in the first days of protests. Others included “blood on your hands” and “corruption kills.”

Students at the university took over the management of the movement, demanding full transparency about the project of the railway station and the pursuit of those responsible for the disaster.

Months protests eventually forced Milos Vuchevich’s resignation as Prime Minister. But he was simply replaced by another appointed by Wuchk, ​​Duro Makut – and the protest movement otherwise achieved little in terms of specific results.

However, the protests have already taken hundreds of thousands on the street and galvanized large sections of society.

An opposition leader, Sirjan Milivojevic of the Democratic Party in the center of the center, compared the moment with the early 2000s, when protests led by students against the notorious President Slobodan Milosevic have become the popular movement. “

Then a coalition of interest groups faced Milosevic’s attempts to manipulate the result of the September 2000 presidential election. Mass protests forced the resignation of the President next month and for the first time introduced democracy in Serbia.

But despite the efforts to refer to the “spirit of October 5”, the current situation is different. President Vucic and his party remain in a relatively comfortable position, with polls showing that SNS remains the most popular party.

After the last, big rally led by students, Mr. Vucic said “Serbia won” in front of an attempt to “overthrow the state”.

People blocking the roads in the cities of Serbia look at it differently. They want a change through the urn – even if it is far from clear who will move against SNS. And the president insists that there are no elections before December next year.

So now it may be a matter of which country it blinks first. And with the temperatures that are already pushed to 40C, this can be summer for a boil in more ways than one.