Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic stated that a new government should be formed in 10 days, otherwise there will be new elections, BGNES reports.
"I am open to both options. We will go to elections or we will make a new government. This will be decided in the next ten days," Vucic said in yet another address to the nation.
Earlier, he attended a government meeting where further steps to resolve the country's political crisis were discussed.
BGNES recalls that Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned, as did the mayor of Novi Sad. Vucevic's government will perform its functions until a new cabinet is elected.
Over the last two months, many thousands of people have been protesting in Serbia against the authoritarian, corrupt and police regime of President Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Government. The protests began after what happened in Novi Sad on 1 November last year, for which citizens blame the authorities. The railway station's visor collapsed several months after a major renovation. Subsequently, the lack of supervision over the construction became apparent and reasonable suspicions of corruption in public procurement with Chinese companies emerged.
On the morning of 28 January, a 24-hour blockade of Belgrade's Autocomanda neighbourhood ended.
The 24-hour blockade was imposed just a few days after the general strike in Serbia that took place on 24 January.
At the beginning of his address Vucic spoke about the beating of students in Novi Sad, which was carried out by youths from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SPS).
"Attacks on the SPP party premises have been going on for days and weeks all over Serbia and everyone thinks they have the right to threaten the premises and the people inside them. Thus, the previous evening, between 3 and 4 a.m., the same people from the anarchist group in Novi Sad started scrawling and pasting stencils on the party premises. The guys from the party came out, pushed them, got them out of there, and everything was fine. Then these guys chased the people who were putting up these posters on the streets of Novi Sad and ended up injuring a girl. She is fine, an intervention has been carried out. I hope with one more dental intervention she will be better. The guys who did this have done huge damage to Serbia and to all of us," Vucic said.
The Serbian president claimed that "the opposition scored an own goal" by blocking Autocommando before the Novi Sad attack took place.
"Milos (Vucevic) wanted to talk to me and said that as a responsible person, he thinks he and Mayor Djuric should resign. It was doubly hard for me to accept. Milos did a good job, he brought Serbia an investment rating to be second in growth rate in 2024, he was always loyal to the homeland, he fought for his people, but he believes that we should put the principle of objective responsibility differently compared to our predecessors," the head of state stressed.
Vucic recalled a series of major political upheavals in Serbia over the past three decades for which "no one has taken responsibility".
"We had the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic, the pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija, the departure of Montenegro, the declaration of independence of the so-called Kosovo, the assassination of Ranko Panic. No one resigned then. I understand why they hate the SPP so much. Milos Vucevic, as president of the SPS, understands responsibility. He showed that the chair is not more important to him than principles and that is why he acted this way," Vučić added. | BGNES
