Serbia’s opposition leader: We are not boycotting vote, but political madness

 He added the boycott was a way to come to free and fair elections.

 “We are not boycotting the elections, we are boycotting political madness we live in, we are boycotting the abnormality of ourt life under this regime,” Obradovic told N1 morning talk show New Day.

He added that free and fair elections were not possible without at least a slight chance to appear in media.

 “We are not fighting to watch Bosko Obradovic on TVs every day, but for a possibility for people to hear a different opinion in the media, to have a debate, to hear the opposition, for something opposite to what we have now – 24-hour propaganda,” Obradovic said.

He also said that an agreement with the authorities was possible, “but you know what that means – six to 12 months of free media.”

"Since the protests started nine months ago, no opposition leader, no one who thinks differently, not a single protests’ organiser had a chance to appear in the public broadcaster's news,” Obradovic said.

Referring to some recent local elections, he said that “we know how the bullies look like and jeeps with dark windows and without licence plates. These are not elections any more; there is no choice between two options. We will fight to the end using our methods – protests and election boycott.”

 Obradovic said people asked him when Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic would lose power?

“For him to fall we have to rise, he cannot lose power if we sit at home,” he added. “I cannot change the president. Only people can do that in free and fair elections.”

Asked about the declining number of people coming to Saturdays’ #1 in 5 million protests, Obradovic said that they would be more extensive in autumn.

“But,” he added, “if people don’t come to the streets, it means they are happy with their life.”

“You remember protests against (late Serbia’s strongman Slobodan) Milosevic. People demonstrated nine years, and we only nine months,” Obradovic said, adding he thought the opposition “isn’t exactly of high quality. We have many shortcomings; we are human beings; we make errors, don’t do everything in the best possible way...”

In a separate statement, carried by the Beta news agency, Vuk Jeremic, the leader of the opposition People’s Party, said “the struggle for the opposition soul” would be fought in next weeks due to new “terrible pressure from the regime and the part of the international community to force Vucic’s opponent to take part in the next spring elections.”

Jeremic, Serbia's former Foreign Minister and the President of the UN General Assembly, said Vucic had the foreign countries’ support to solve the Kosovo issue and “got the green light to do that however he wants.”

The New Party head Zoran Zivkovic said earlier that Vucic promised to show a guarantee that the OSCE was called to monitor the election process six months ahead of the vote and that if that was true “the battlefield should not be abandoned,” and the boycott should not be declared in advance.

He said his party had said it would decide on the boycott once the elections were called.