Vucevic Announces SNS Presidency Meeting, New Faces
A day after the election, the Serbian Progressive Party leader says the party will pick new people for posts, prepare for another vote and act as an opposition that protects the state.
Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) leader Milos Vucevic announced on Monday, October 26, that the SNS Presidency will meet shortly, that the meeting will choose new people for certain posts and that the party is preparing for another election. It was his first public address since the vote, in which the Student List led according to preliminary figures. The Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) has yet to declare final results.
Vucevic spoke in a television appearance. The outlet Objektiv reports that he was a guest on TV Kurir, while Kurir’s own article says he appeared in the studio of TV Pink. We reported earlier that Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat last night on the basis of a sample, and Vucevic has now explained for the first time how that night looked from the inside and what the party plans.
What did Vucevic announce for the party?
Vucevic gave no date for the Presidency meeting and said only that it would be held shortly. By his account, the meeting will pick new people for some positions, and the party will prepare for new elections.
Kurir also relays a broader message that Vucevic attributed to the party leadership: the SNS will not fall apart. He repeated Vucic’s words, “We will not fall apart, we will not scatter!”, and added:
We will refresh our ranks, and changes are certainly coming. They will be painful but very healing changes for the SNS.
According to him, those who were in the party for tenders and to find themselves a cushy spot will leave. In that part of his remarks Vucevic promised that the SNS would be an “unwavering, firm opposition in the National Assembly of Serbia.”
Who was with Vucic when he said the election was lost?
Vucevic also described what happened before last night’s press conference. In his telling, Vucic had access to representative samples, and at one point, based on the votes counted, the party was in the lead, but that “obviously was not a representative sample.” With 12 percent of the votes counted, he said, the SNS was ahead. He then described the president’s call:
He called us, it was Ana and me, Mile, Sinisa, and Milan Knezevic was with us. And he said that we had lost the election.
According to Kurir’s article, Vucevic went on to say that Vucic received data from Stratum and that this is why he called the press conference. Vucevic described the concession as a “strong cornerstone” of democracy, which Objektiv carries in his words: “I think last night’s conference by Vucic is a strong cornerstone.”
How many deputies does the SNS expect in the National Assembly?
Vucevic said the SNS would have a “competitive caucus” in the National Assembly of Serbia that would be “very combative,” and that it would show how an opposition that protects the state behaves. Kurir reports that he spoke of 105 deputies who will not stay silent and who will point to every fraud from the pre-election period. That number appears only in Kurir’s paraphrase of his remarks, not in Objektiv.
The figure does not match the projection we published earlier. According to CeSID, on a sample of 96 percent of the votes counted, the United Serbia list would win 103 seats and the Student List 140 of 250. Vucevic’s figure is therefore his own claim, while 103 is a projection that can still change once RIK publishes official results.
What did he say about Expo and big projects?
Vucevic expressed hope that the winning list will not halt major projects. Objektiv notes that he said he believes “an awareness of the responsibility to finish those projects will prevail” among them, and Kurir carries his words about Expo:
I hope it won’t cross their minds to cancel Expo, because that would be an international scandal.
In the same part of his remarks he mentioned the completion of the Fruska Gora Corridor and the Danube Highway from Golubac toward Kladovo and Negotin. He said that the new government, once it takes over, will have neither the strength nor the will to stop those projects.
Asked about accusations from the campaign, from the sound cannon and Jovanjica to the Sarajevo safari and the Sky messages, Vucevic maintains that they were lies. If there is any basis, he added, the new government can prosecute them:
Here is the chance, let them show it, if it exists, they can always prosecute us.
Objektiv also carries his message: “In six months you will see what kind of deceptions and lies those were and what their policy will be.”
What did he say about respecting the election result?
Vucevic repeated that the SNS recognizes the will of the citizens. Objektiv carries two of his messages on how the party relates to the outcome:
This is not whining, we honorably and democratically recognized the will of the people.
The second message is a warning: “We have a problem with what will happen to Serbia, but we respect the will of the people.” Vucevic also called the SNS a “bastion of democracy in Serbia and the only party that survived the colored revolution.”
He also claimed that the leaders of the winning list, which he calls the blockaders in his remarks, did not call on their supporters to stay calm after Vucic’s statement and, as he put it, are stoking an atmosphere in which everyone should hunt down their own “cacak.” We did not have a reaction from the Student List leaders to these claims at the time of writing.
In the closing part of the conversation Vucevic recalled that the SNS has been in opposition before: “We have long experience in opposition, and we have lost, we have lived through all of this.” Kurir also carries his final message:
Now you will see an example of an opposition that is aware of its responsibility to the state and the people, and relentless in fighting the bad moves of the future government.
