Snap parliamentary, provincial, and Belgrade elections, as well as elections in about 60 local self-governments, will be held in less than a month. The campaign appears to have started rather intensely and in a dirty fashion since the day of calling the elections. In answer to the question what could be expected with the elections coming near, given such a start, Vladimir Orlić, Speaker of the Serbian Parliament and a Progressive Party official, said in his interview with Kurir that “the former regime has launched a campaign by a volley of the dirtiest of lies, insults, and violence, with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and the members of his family again being in all their crosshairs again.”
“Ever since day one of the campaign, they cruelly pounced at Aleksandar Vučić’s mother, using unheard-of and inconceivable insults, then moving on to his father, brother, wife, and children, including his youngest – a six-year-old. Beasts don’t act the way the tycoons and thieves from the previous regime have been doing, alongside all their hired guns – the party and media henchmen. This will never change, not in a month, or even a decade. The only thing they have to offer is their pathological hate. On the other hand, the electoral list ‘Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop’ talks about the results and plans for the future. Serbia will choose between that hatred and this future in December: for tycoon Đilas or for President Vučić – there is no third option.”
Have you heard some concrete suggestions and plans for the period after the elections, i.e. a political programme, and from which party? Or does it all boil down to attacking the other options?
“When Đilas’s list even tries to mumble something regarding what happens after the elections, all you hear are their intentions to tear something down. ‘We will stop the works here and there, we will stop the metro, we will stop the Expo…,’ that’s all. They want to tear things down, break them apart, destroy them, angry as they are at everything that is good for Serbia, which is associated with the name of Aleksandar Vučić because it represents the results of his policies. The fake tycoon ‘right-wingers’, when they are not attacking Vučić and Serbia, seem only to be competing amongst each other in who will be more servile to their boss, Đilas, pledging loyalty to him and promising that they would fall on their knees before him and his billions after the elections. Only the electoral list ‘Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop’ calls upon the nation to work together, finish the highways and modern railroads that we have started, build new hospitals and technological parks, raise salaries and pensions, with a clear plan: to raise the average salary in 2027 to EURO 1,400, and the minimal wage and pensions to EURO 640. That’s where life is, that’s where the future lies, that constitutes policy. Returning to the past, plundering, and looting are no policy – it’s pure destruction, the killing of Serbia, which we cannot let happen.”
You are listed fifth on the “Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop” electoral list. Could this mean that you will stay in the same position after the elections as Speaker of the Parliament, or would you join the government? What is closer to you, personally?
“All of us who uphold the policies of the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, the candidates on the electoral list ‘Serbia Must Not Stop’, which gathers together a broad popular movement of people for whom Serbia comes first, as well as everyone else – those serious and responsible people, who wish well to all the families in Serbia, and respect for all the mothers and protection for all the children – have just one common goal: To save Serbia and make sure it makes even faster headway into the future. To belong to that policy, to fight for it anywhere – that’s the greatest honour in the world. The positions and posts have always been the concern of those others, so they have turned their parties into tycoon companies. They did the same thing with Serbia – back then, but never again. Never will honest people allow themselves to look even a bit like them, and we especially won’t allow our country to be privatized again and then plundered no end.”
On the hardest question
‘We are fighting for our Kosovo under impossible conditions, but we’re not giving up’
The situation in Kosovo appears to be getting more and more complicated, with pressure on Serbia and its Government intensifying. Is there a realistic solution to this issue, or will we forever live in this stalemate?
“We are fighting for our Kosovo & Metohija under impossible conditions, but we’re not giving up. The Serbs in Kosovo also know who is the only one fighting for them: The policy of President Vučić has secured 28 withdrawn recognitions of the so-called Kosovo, and he alone has done it. He alone firmly says to anyone’s face, from the UN pulpit and to the entire world: Serbia will never recognize the so-called Kosovo; there is no chair for them in the UN, no membership in the associated international organizations. We are upholding international law and ask that it be respected in the case of our country too. You haven’t heard or seen others do it. On the contrary, all they do is push for Serbia to be broken in Kosovo, hoping that in this way they will break the man that they have no chance of beating politically, despite the billions that they have invested in toppling him. And then it becomes clear to you why there is no difference whatsoever between the criminal Kurti and the former regime’s human caricatures here – both those on the ‘left’ and on the ‘right’ – living together off of the tycoon’s means. We will fight them and Kurti too, we will always be fighting – for our country and our people.”
Part of the opposition is convinced they can win the Belgrade election. Speaking of Belgrade, certain right-wing parties are open about joining hands with the pro-European opposition. What is your take on that? What are their chances in the capital?
“They have declared themselves winners already, way to go. The same thing happened the last time, and the time before last, so it turned out that they had only been lying to their voters. Now they’re lying to them through their teeth – just think back to what the protest looked like: ‘We’re staying with you on the Gazela Bridge until the demands are met,’ and then they’re the first to run home. ‘We’re coming in September in numbers greater than ever,’ and then they go to seaside resorts. ‘We’re overthrowing the government in a Parliament session,’ and then they don’t show up for the vote and go somewhere else to spend the weekend… Eventually they insulted the parents of the murdered children, granting themselves the privilege to turn the tragically lost lives into their personal promotion, the election campaign, and a means for their bosses Đilas and Šolak to turn a profit. So much about their ‘beliefs’. These fake ‘right-wingers’, from DPS, through Dveri and what is left of Zavetnici, to the non-existent POKS (The Movement to Renew The Kingdom of Serbia) stood at attention before Đilas last year in a bid to plunder Belgrade together. If they try again, that’s no news. Let them try – the people will have their say.”
On the turbulent international circumstances
‘To work and march to the future united and in harmony’
In the turbulent international circumstances, what do you guarantee to the citizens of Serbia if your coalition stays in power after the elections?
“The fight for the people and the country, for a free, sovereign, and independent Serbia, which listens only to its people and safeguards only its interests. We are not just promising this – we have actually proved it in our work. Only the policy implemented by President Aleksandar Vučić has turned out to be capable to protect the people at a time of the biggest international crises and disruptions, to safeguard Serbia while not giving up on big projects, development, and strengthening, and creating a continuous flow of new jobs, higher and better pensions and salaries, and living conditions for the people. And everyone knows: If power is in the hands of these brutes saying that ‘everything should stop, that Serbia should stop, that we should go back into the past and get to the state coffers no matter what our policies are, as long as we topple Vučić’ for just one day at a time of such difficult crises and enormous problems, these people would break Serbia apart in that one day. They would destroy it all, and raze everything to the ground. We must not allow that to happen. This is why our message – ‘Serbia Must Not Stop’ – is also our policy for the years after the elections: To work and march to the future united and in harmony. The people know – only the vote that goes to Aleksandar Vučić and the electoral list that he leads is a vote for that kind of future. Our strength lies in these people, and it will be how the people decide. We guarantee that the people’s will will be respected – it has always been sacred to us.”
And what are the chances the opposition has in the state election, given that the situation there is similar – a collaboration of almost everyone in the opposition and the so-called transitional government are being announced?
“It’s all the same there too. All those who swear and ‘pledge’ to free Kosovo with rifles (as long as the rifles are carried by other people’s children, not themselves), to defend Russia to the last drop of blood and sweat (other people’s blood and other people’s sweat, of course) – they all say that if they only get a chance, they will form a government with those for whom Kosovo is independent; they say that Serbs are genocidal, and ask every day that sanctions against Russia be imposed, as well as against anyone else once their foreign bosses order them to do so. So much for their full ‘patriotism’, it’s great that the people can see that. With such people, everything boils down to power and money – the money they expect to be divided amongst them by their boss Đilas, which is what they used to do when he was in power and stuffed 619 million euros in his accounts, while taking care of these yes-men through Kolubara and numerous ministries. What would that transitional government do except writing off Kosovo, writing off The Republic of Srpska, branding Serbs, and imposing sanctions? They are ‘transitional’ as it is, without power: Every day they go from one former regime’s party to another, vie among each other and complain about each other, call each other thieves and fascists… You don’t need a government for that sort of ‘transitionality’, they already have it. And that’s the only thing they’re good at.”
Kurir.rs/I. Žigić
Bonus video:
