Aleksandar Vucic has told opposition protesters he intends to fight, not flee
Western-funded protesters are attempting “regime change” in Serbia but the government has no intention of giving up, President Aleksandar Vucic has said, contrasting himself with ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
Serbia has insisted on neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and has not joined the EU’s sanctions against Moscow, despite the increasing pressure from the bloc that it officially hopes to join someday.
As the Syrian government collapsed over the weekend, several opposition activists in Serbia compared Vucic to Assad and wished to see him leave the country as well.
“If they think I’m Assad, and that I’ll run away somewhere, I will not,” Vucic said in a video post on Instagram late on Monday.
“I will fight for Serbia and serve only my own people,” the president added. “I will never serve the foreigners, or those who wish to defeat, humiliate and destroy Serbia.”
Vucic called out opposition protesters as being agents of outside powers, funded from abroad as part of “hybrid tactics to undermine the country.”
Although the president’s Progressive Party has a comfortable parliamentary majority, several opposition parties have demanded the cabinet’s resignation over the November 1 tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad. They have blamed government corruption for the collapse of a concrete canopy at the recently renovated railway station, which killed 15 people and severely injured two more.
Opposition activists have also sought to stop the demolition of a bridge across the Sava River that was originally built by the occupying Germans during World War II, alleging that the new bridge project is a scam that would benefit construction companies close to the government.
Last year, the opposition campaigned for parliament as “Serbia Against Violence,” blaming Vucic and the Progressives for a fatal mass shooting at a Belgrade elementary school.
In the Instagram video, Vucic threatened to expose “all the details” about how much money was spent from the outside to “prevent Serbia from being free and independent, from making its own decisions, from choosing its own future, and making it obey and serve someone else.”
Vucic was in Germany on Tuesday, meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Saxony to promote the controversial lithium-mining project planned for Western Serbia. Scholz’s coalition recently collapsed over the economic crisis caused in part by funding Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, and the spiraling costs of embracing green energy over Russian natural gas.
