Belgrade Assembly Rejects Censure of Mayor Sapic

Only 15 councillors voted on Tuesday, October 6, to condemn the conduct of Mayor Aleksandar Sapic, so the Kreni-Promeni movement’s motion failed in the Belgrade City Assembly, which has 110 seats. The Serbian Progressive Party and the Socialist Party of Serbia hold the majority. The opposition is answering with a request for a special session with a single agenda item, removing the mayor, to be filed on Wednesday, October 7.

What exactly was voted on, and who left the hall?

The sources differ on details. BBC News in Serbian reports that 15 councillors backed the motion to condemn Sapic and that Kreni-Promeni delegates left the session before councillors voted. The weekly Vreme says 15 councillors voted to put a debate on the incident between Sapic and councillor Tatjana Micic on the agenda, and that the movement left after the vote. It is probably the same vote described two ways, and it is undisputed that the motion did not win a majority.

According to Vreme, councillors from Kreni-Promeni, the Green-Left Front, the Freedom and Justice Movement and the We - Power of the People movement walked out. Sapic did not attend. The agenda otherwise covered detailed regulation plans for several municipalities and approvals of revised business plans for 13 public utility companies.

Kreni-Promeni councillor Marina Pavlovic spoke from the podium:

“We must not stay silent, violence has no justification. We demand Sapic’s irrevocable resignation, everything else is torment.”

When is the special session request due?

Kreni-Promeni president Savo Manojlovic told reporters in the City Assembly lobby that the opposition has enough signatures. “We have the third of councillors needed to call an extraordinary session,” he said, adding that “Aleksandar Sapic cannot be the mayor of this city.” According to BBC, the request will go to City Assembly Speaker Nikola Nikodijevic of the Socialist Party, and Manojlovic called on the Socialists to support the initiative.

A request to call a session must come from at least a third of the 110 councillors, which is 37. The speaker then has five days to schedule it.

During his address, Kreni-Promeni councillors held up a banner with hearts and the words “For Tanja”. According to an N1 reporter, there was a scuffle with security when the banner was brought into the hall.

We - Power of the People said it could no longer take part in the assembly’s work. Councillor Borislav Antonijevic said in the lobby:

“As you yourselves have heard, we had, as many times in the Assembly, all sorts of proposals for solving all sorts of problems, but what happened, and what is happening with us, ending with this incident in which the mayor of the City of Belgrade, Mr. Aleksandar Sapic, I don’t even know whether I can still call him Mr., lunged at a woman and inflicted serious physical injuries, is a precedent where we can no longer take part in the work of the Belgrade City Assembly while he is at the head of the City of Belgrade.”

The reports differ on the condition. N1 says the boycott lasts as long as Sapic is mayor, while BBC says it lasts until a session on him is scheduled.

What came before the session?

The incident took place on September 27 on Bezanijska Kosa. Micic says Sapic hit her in the face while she was walking her dog with her husband, when she tried to separate him and her husband. Sapic confirms they met and that a verbal argument followed, but denies hitting her. Kreni-Promeni released a video that it says shows the blow. According to Vreme, medical records from the University Clinical Center note a fractured nasal bone and part of the upper jaw with dislocation, and Micic underwent surgery on October 5.

The Third Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade questioned Sapic as a suspect, and Micic was questioned as well. Sapic said his biggest mistake was not stepping away and avoiding the incident, but he rejected calls to resign. Aleksandar Vucic criticized him, saying that as a public official he should have avoided such a situation.

Ahead of the session, representatives of parties with no councillors in this assembly, because they boycotted the last city elections, also spoke up. Ana Godjevac, vice president of the Freedom and Justice Party’s City Board, said outside the Assembly:

“To the outgoing mayor, Aleksandar Sapic, we say that he should start packing, and not only packing, but that he will soon answer for all his misdeeds.”

Petar Boskovic, a member of the Presidency of Serbia Centre, called for the session to be convened with a single item, the mayor’s irrevocable resignation.

What does the ruling party say?

The day before, on October 5, Ana Brnabic, the lead candidate of the “United Serbia” list, spoke about Sapic. Asked about the councillor who underwent surgery, she replied that people will “see in the future what the SNS will do with Aleksandar Sapic as its member,” and then said:

“Aleksandar Vucic spoke out about the incident in which Aleksandar Sapic was involved right away the next day, the following morning, condemned it and said it was inappropriate and should not have happened and that we are absolutely against violence.”

What would removal mean for the city?

According to Vreme’s reading, the decision rests with the ruling majority. If Sapic is removed or resigns, the mandates of his deputy and the City Council end automatically. If the City Assembly does not elect a new mayor within 30 days, the Serbian Government dissolves the Assembly and appoints a temporary body, after which local elections are called. They would then land alongside the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25.

Sapic has been mayor since 2022, and his current four-year mandate began in June 2024. Before that he was elected three times as president of the New Belgrade municipal assembly.