Senior ruling party official calls for calm, blames western services

SNS Presidency member Vladimir Djukanovic said that “the point of the activities of the western services, who are instigating all this, is for the authorities to react fiercely and aggressively to portray the people blocking the international highway as victims”. “The western services are provoking the authorities … but on the other hand the authorities should not get hooked but have to prove to be wiser and suffer everything heroically” he wrote in an op-ed piece for pro-government daily Politika.

Three anti-violence protests have been held following two mass shootings early in May. Thousands of people attended the gatherings and marches which blocked the Gazela bridge and highway through Belgrade.

Djukanovic’s Twitter post called the media to stop fanning divisions and help ease tensions and start talking. He called pro-regime media to stop demeaning the protesters. “Please don’t say that there were only a handful of them that they were drunk. We need to hear those people. We will achieve nothing by insulting them. Those people are not part of the opposition establishment,” he wrote and added that the demands made at the protests are justified.

He warned that a road block on the Gazela bridge achieves nothing and that the dismissal of the members of the Regulatory Body for Electronic media (REM) can be discussed. He also called “the media close to the opposition” (instead of using the term tycoon media which is customary among SNS officials) not to insult the people at the May 26 SNS rally in Belgrade.

“I am asking for talks and to hear the people who are rightfully angry because we survived two tragedies as a society. I am asking the SNS to change its attitude towards voters because new generations have grown up who do not get their news from TV and newspapers. A lot has to be discussed and a lot changed,” Djukanovic wrote.

Djukanovic’s Twitter post comes after Prime Minister Ana Brnabic mocked protesters in a Twitter post with a photoshopped picture of herself, SNS leader and President Aleksandar Vucic and Finance Minister Sinisa Mali that drew negative reactions.