Radar: DS official says boycott good only for regime

DS deputy leader Dragana Rakic said the boycott is an issue only in Belgrade and not in any other place where the local elections will be held on June 2. “Only in the one place where we could have scored an important victory if only we had remained united,” she added. Rakic is a DS official based in the northeastern city of Vrsac. She said that people in her home town have asked her why the opposition couldn’t have united in Belgrade as they did in Vrsac.

“We can defeat the autocratic regime only if we stand together and if we are joined by people who want to change Serbia for the better,” she said and added that it was easier in some places to unite for the elections then over the boycott.

“Vucic’s authorities certainly won’t be de-legitimized through a boycott of the local elections… I am convinced that we will win in some places,” she said.

Rakic said that a campaign has been launched against her family and those of her associates in the local media. “I have been called Kurti’s mercenary and the woman who’s selling Kosovo one day and the next day I’m stealing apples in the market a third day I’m a mental patient… My associates from other parties are facing the same thing,” she said and added that the local media are closed to the opposition.

According to Rakic, the conditions are no worse than they were for the mid-December elections. “The main political goal of the opposition in Serbia has to be preserving unity,” she said.