European Serbia: Djilas Calls Vote the Sequel to Oct. 5

The European Serbia list marked the 26th anniversary of the October 5 changes in Belgrade with a rally addressed by four of its leaders: Dragan Djilas, president of the Freedom and Justice Party (SSP) and the list’s top candidate, Zdravko Ponos, president of Serbia Center, Marinika Tepic, SSP vice president, and Goran Jesic, leader of the Solidarity Citizens’ Movement. The occasion was historic, but the message was electoral: the parliamentary election set for October 25, Djilas said, is “a direct continuation of that great struggle.”

The list brings together the SSP, Serbia Center (SRCE) and the Solidarity movement. All the speakers started from the same anniversary, yet they did not read it the same way: Djilas presented October 5 as a foundation, while the others spent most of their time on what, in their view, went wrong after October 6, 2000.

What did Djilas say about October 5 and the election?

Djilas told the crowd that October 25 closes a circle opened 26 years ago. According to Beta, he said:

“October 25 is the day when, with a pencil and a vote, we finish the job begun on October 5.”

The same speech, as reported by Nova.rs, included the assessment that “October 5 was and remains the cornerstone of the struggle for a European Serbia.” He described that day as Serbia’s triumphant return “to the heart of Europe,” and in his words it was also the collapse of Slobodan Milosevic’s politics and of his associates and followers, among whom he named Vojislav Seselj, Aleksandar Vucic and Ivica Dacic.

Djilas did not stop at the historical verdict. He turned to the present and to those in power:

“The same actors of darkness from the 90s - Aleksandar Vucic, Ivica Dacic, their radical ideologues, Vojislav Seselj… are again trying to pull us away from European values, to cement their autocracy. Our message to them is: you will not succeed, you have no chance whatsoever.”

According to N1’s report, Djilas also addressed how the date is interpreted today: “Today Dacic tells us that October 5 was a fraud. Vucic tells us it was a strategic and fundamental catastrophe.” Reports from the rally contain no response from Vucic, Dacic or Seselj to these claims.

According to Beta, Djilas also said the list is polling “far above the threshold,” but that if it does not become a factor in parliament that enables European integration, citizens will remember “the wonderful times when they could go to Europe with just a fingerprint and a photograph.” He added: “We used to stand in lines. My friends remember what that looked like. Today it is the digital age, so there will be no lines, but everything else will be the same… And when we isolate ourselves from the world and from Europe, there is nothing further.”

What did the other leaders on the list say?

Ponos said the anniversary is an occasion neither for celebration nor for mourning, but for a lesson. According to Nova.rs, he put it this way:

“There is no use in celebrating or in mourning, the only use can come from lessons, and the lesson is not about October 5 but about what we figuratively call October 6. The years from then until today were mostly eaten by locusts.”

The lesson, in his words, is that the new government after 2000 did not change the system, but the system changed it: “if you don’t change the system quickly, the system changes you.” He described Vucic as someone who understood this and bent the system to his own needs: “He has subordinated the institutions completely to his will, much more than was the case in Milosevic’s time.” According to Beta, Ponos said the list’s vision is a European Serbia, which is why it was named that way, while some in government and in part of the opposition say Serbia should not join the European Union or leave the question for after the election: “We in ‘European Serbia’ say there is no time to wait and deliberate, because we are a quarter of a century late.”

Tepic, as relayed by Nova.rs, said it takes courage to admit that the system that ruled before October 5 was not defeated. According to Beta, she said she does not want to remember October 5, 2000, because that job was never finished, and went on:

“We must finally finish that job. And that will be the only justice and that will be the final victory. 26 years ago Serbia showed it had beaten fear, and today we must show something much more important, which is that it has drawn lessons and learned the lesson.”

The lesson, she explained, is that no party may ever again seize the state for good. “The most important thing is that citizens are the ones who decide when enough is enough. In the end, every dictator gets his own October 5,” Tepic said. According to N1’s report, she also stressed that “Vucic did not fall from Mars” and that “Dacic is not a political accident.”

Jesic aimed his criticism at what he sees as missed after 2000. According to Nova.rs, he believes the new government at the time did not immediately sanction war criminals or strip them of their property, which is why a “harmful” government returned. For citizens who remember that era, and for those who were not yet born, the list has to explain what happens when the wrong choice is made at the ballot box:

“Our task is to remind them and to tell them what will happen if the decision is wrong on October 25, and what road the citizens of Serbia will be on if it happens without ‘European Serbia’.”

He was sharpest when he spoke about what the list plans to do if it takes power. In Jesic’s words, “our first job will not be to solve the citizens’ problems, but first to settle accounts with those who brought this country to this situation.” Beta also carries his closing message: “On October 26 we celebrate, but we go to make arrests.”

What is left of the rally ahead of the vote?

The speeches drew three different themes from the same date: continuing the struggle (Djilas), a system that changes whoever comes to power (Ponos and Tepic), and a reckoning with those responsible for the state of the country (Jesic). Tepic closed the rally by claiming that the European Serbia list is “the only guarantee that it will be so.”

Less than three weeks remain until the October 25 election.