Vucic at SNS slava: no dialogue if Informer is shut down

Aleksandar Vucic, a member of the SNS Presidency and head of the “Aleksandar Vucic - United Serbia” list, said at noon on October 27, at the party’s slava in its New Belgrade headquarters, that there will be no talks with representatives of the new majority for the next four years if TV Informer is shut down. He added that the SNS will “organize itself” if the state does not react.

It was his first address to party members since the October 25 election, in which the list won 39 percent of the vote according to Telegraf, while the winning Student List took 52.7 percent. The results are not final until the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) declares them, and B92 reports that the RIK is holding its session on October 28 in the National Assembly. Vucic conceded defeat after the election, as we reported earlier.

What did Vucic say about Informer?

The speech opened with a description of the conditions in which the SNS is marking its slava. Vucic said:

This year we are marking our slava in difficult conditions, in conditions of genuine, true revolutionary terror, in conditions in which few political parties, even if they were the only opposition party, go through anything similar, not only in modern Europe but in the whole world.

The reason for the announcement about Informer was the break-in at the television’s building on the evening of October 26, which we have already covered. Vucic called for state bodies to work more efficiently and claimed that only the arrival of a police brigade saved Dragan J. Vucicevic. He then said:

Do you want to shut down Informer? Know this: for the next 4 years there will be no talks with us, no dialogue on any issue.

Novosti records a longer version of the same message:

And as for you making decisions to close television stations - you can, but forget about having a single conversation with any representative of our list for four years, whether in the Assembly, about the government or about anything else.

None of the sources says that a decision to shut down Informer has been made, or who would make it. Vucic spoke in the conditional.

What did he announce if the state does not react?

The sources differ in how they record the announcement. Mondo reports that Vucic said “we will be forced to self-organize,” while Novosti records “so we will be forced to organize ourselves.” Both versions accompany the same sentence:

If the state does not react, in the days ahead we will have to make our own decisions.

According to Novosti, the hall broke into applause. Vucic added:

If the state does not let us work in peace, we have no choice but to defend our own lives ourselves. And we will defend them. We want them to form a government as soon as possible and show off their enormous knowledge.

In the sources available to us, there is no response from state bodies or the Student List to these statements.

Who was at the slava?

The slava began with a priest’s prayer and the traditional cutting of the slava bread, and it was marked at the same time in municipal and city committees across Serbia. According to B92, those present included SNS president Milos Vucevic, Ana Brnabic, Sinisa Mali, Nemanja Starovic and Jelena Zaric Kovacevic, as well as the president of the Serbian Party Zavetnici, Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski. Novosti lists actress Lidija Vukicevic and singer Cakana among the guests and describes the headquarters as packed, with no room for everyone. According to the same paper, Vucic was greeted with shouts of “Aco, Serb!”

What else did he say in the speech?

Vucic said the SNS will be persecuted, and explained it this way:

They will persecute us because, unlike them, we never wanted to impose sanctions on Russia, nor did we want to recognize an independent Kosovo.

He also claimed that people came the same day to disrupt the SNS slava in Gornji Milanovac. The sources do not carry confirmation of that event or a response from other sides. The SNS, he said, is still “by far the largest” party in the country, and he put the number of people who voted for the list at 1.7 million, or 800,000. Telegraf, as noted above, reports 39 and 52.7 percent, and only the figures declared by the RIK will be final.

He also spoke about family and money. “Not a single member of the Vucic family has left Serbia, nor will they,” he said. According to Novosti, he assured listeners that there is no danger to the euro exchange rate, pensions or foreign currency reserves in the next year because, as he put it, “nothing bad can happen in a year, since we have enough money and reserves.” Novosti also reports that, as he announced, on October 27 next year he will ask people to remember the atmosphere of this slava.