Page 82 - bne Magazine February 2023

82 Opinion
bne February 2023
was an independent country. Even when Djukanovic didn’t hold a position in government, he always had power over it — just because he was president of the ruling party.
That could be a way to go for Vucic if he doesn’t want
to constantly run election races. To date, his frequent announcements about a withdrawal from politics have been just part of these races. Whenever he says something like this, it sets the public on fire. It is not yet clear what’s the reason for such acts — political spin, to test the public and improve his rating, or just because he truly feels overwhelmed in the moment and has to vent. However, the way his media reports on his announcements is disturbing and creates panic in the country — some are scared that no one could be better than him while others are scared that he could be replaced by extremists who might cause disasters in the country.
No obvious successor
At this moment it is impossible to pick a potential successor as Vucic has surrounded himself with people whose political careers developed only once they became his close associates. Those people are extremely loyal and do not represent competition. They are known primarily as members of his team, making it difficult to single out any one of them to label as a future president.
Some, who have been close to Vucic since he first came to power, have a relatively high profile within Serbia. One of them is Sinisa Mali, current minister of finance and former mayor of Belgrade. However, he can’t hope to emulate Vucic’s popularity because he has been embroiled in numerous scandals — from media reports that he owns 24 apartments in Bulgaria, to accusations that he plagiarised his PhD.
“At this moment it is impossible to pick a potential successor as Vucic has surrounded himself with people whose political careers developed only once they became his close associates”
Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic is also very loyal and a hard worker, but as Serbia’s first openly gay PM she cannot be seen as a successor because Serbs are not yet ready to directly vote for a lesbian to become their president.
A third name from within the government ranks is the former mayor of Novi Sad who is now minister of defence, Milos Vucevic. His is a new name on the national scene and a name that Vucic promotes. Most voters still do not know him though, and for ordinary people, a minister of defence
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is not a key figure whose work they would follow and value.
On the opposition side it is hard to find anyone able to bring together multiple small parties and collect all their votes in order to really gain visibility and credibility. Vucic and his SNS used all available tools to destroy the opposition in the country but the opposition itself helped them by fighting among themselves and failing to unite effectively.
There are rumours that former minister of energy Zorana Mihajlovic might form a party and challenge Vucic, but nothing has happened yet. Mihajlovic is openly for faster EU integration, sanctions against Russia and energy diversification (or a decrease in Serbia’s dependance on Russia). As such, she is not a favourite with official Moscow and a lot of effort was put into destroying her reputation. She may be a choice of some that hold similar views, but that still wouldn't be enough for a victory.
Right now, Serbia is poisoned by Putinism and “Zrbism”,
a pejorative title for Serbian nationalists that support the invasion of Ukraine and believe that Russia is Serbia’s mother and its protector from the West. Most Serbs do not want someone with these views to come anywhere near the country’s institutions because Serbia is still a way more democratic society than Russia. Even for Serbs sympathetic to Russia and with strong anti-Vucic sentiment, the arrival of a successor from among the “Zrbs” is a scary idea.
The only thing really known about the succession in Serbia is that if Vucic was to resign today, the acting president would be current parliament speaker Vladimir Orlic — a 40-year-old SNS member since 2008 and holder of a PhD in telecommunication.
Tito after Tito, but after Vucic who?
Even though almost nothing about Vucic is certain, one thing is for sure — he wants to become part of history. Some in Serbia hope his final goal is to reach a deal with Pristina and earn a Nobel Peace Prize and then retire. If that is indeed his dream, it would secure a better future for the whole region. People that don’t like him don’t believe that this is his dream, instead, they say that he dreams of being the new Tito.
Joseph Broz Tito, the president and self declared marshal
of post WWII Yugoslavia, was indeed loved throughout the federation and many still miss him and that country. Tito’s mandate only ended when he died. Those that remember the day of his death in May 1980 claim that there wasn’t a single person in Yugoslavia that didn’t cry.
Tito kept Yugoslavia outside of the Iron Curtain because of his antagonism with Joseph Stalin, head of the Soviet Union. Both were communists and, just like Stalin, Tito didn’t like those who had different political views from his, who usually ended up in political prisons. Vucic doesn’t like to hear criticism and doesn’t deal well with it, but is still far away from such political