Serbian academic Dusan Teodorovic warned of possible violence if the authorities lose the coming elections in April on Tuesday because the president is not prepared to lose his grip on power.

Teodorovic told the N1 morning show that the Serbian President could use force to remain in power. “I think that Aleksandar Vucic is a person prepared to use force to remain in power,” he said.

“He simply can’t lose the elections. He can’t imagine his life without being in power, deciding our fate, not being the father of the nation and not having the apparatus he has created,” the university and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) said.

Teodorovic said that he supports the environmental activists protesting in a makeshift tent camp in front of the Serbian Presidency building, adding that they should recall the 1804 Serbian uprising on this date when the people rose up and launched what he said was a Serbian revolution against the Ottoman Empire. “After all these years, we are living in a moment when, perhaps, a revolution should be started. Metaphorically speaking, I like the idea of the Ecological Uprising (environmental organization) marching and protesting on this day as the best way to remember what happened in 1804 when they rebelled against an occupier. We now also have an occupier because I view these authorities as occupiers,” Teodorovic said.