When the coalition formed in Novi Sad was highlighted as the opposition's greatest success, Policy Center Director Dragan Popovic expressed his concern that this coalition was too broad, said the Radar weekly in its latest issue.
When asked if that was the reason for the poor election result, he responded that he wasn’t certain, but that he believes it may have played a part, and added: “If a coalition ranges from conservative nationalists to the left, what message are you sending? In addition, the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina and the POKS (Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia) were in the coalition, both of which were in power in Novi Sad, together with the SNS (Serbian Progressive Party), for quite a while. Wherever a group of citizens offering solutions to local issues ran independently, it performed well, yet in Novi Sad all citizen groups were on the opposition ticket, and that did not yield results.”
Commenting for Radar on the opposition’s success or failure in the local elections, Popovic said: “They got tangled up in that boycott vs. non-boycott story and turned a methodological issue into a fundamental one. And then some public figures even raised that as an ethical issue, which is very dangerous. That must not be done because it only has to do with whether you are in favor of one or the other method of struggle, while the goal is one and the same – to overthrow the authoritarian system. In addition, not every method will work equally well at all times.”
When the elections were called the opposition should have moved forward, they should have articulated their message and taken responsibility for their decision, yet, in the end, we ended up with an opposition that is focused on itself, Popovic told Radar.
In his opinion, electoral conditions are not the fundamental issue but rather the fact that one political party and one man have privatized all public resources and created such media inequality, said Radar.
“We will never get better electoral conditions from this authoritarian government because if we did it wouldn’t be authoritarian. If the opposition places all emphasis on buses bringing over voters from Republika Srpska and on (Serbian Progressive Party’s) call centers, I’m afraid that won’t be enough for the citizens to recognize them as a serious alternative. It reminds them too much of the Calimero syndrome where there’s constant talk about injustice rather than about alternative policies that could attract a broader circle of people,” Popovic told Radar.
“A portion of the opposition public is radicalized to the extent that they now say no to any kind of institutional effort,” he said, adding: “I think this sends a very bad message to the remaining opposition voters – that you are a kind of an isolated sect that is not acting in the state’s interest as a collective institution. It is very important for the opposition to be in the parliament and in the bodies at the local level. If you look at the results, everyone follows the work of a strong opposition in cities in which the struggle through procedure, respect for rules, and uncovering scandals is noticeable. The opposition in Leskovac is currently working on exposing a major scandal and collecting signatures for the dismissal of the mayor, in the city of Kraljevo they are fighting for the Pharmaceutical Company in the local parliament, in Kragujevac they are constantly breathing down the local government’s neck.”
Popovic says we cannot just sit around and wait for things to improve, and that he does not have a smart answer to the question of what will happen with us if the situation radicalizes further, but that he knows that we must all fight together to prevent radicalization, said Radar.
“The civil society, the media and the political parties all need to stick together and insist on solidarity as a fundamental societal value. We might have lost the state, but we are still fighting for the society,” Popovic told Radar.
