As mass protests in Serbia show no sign of calming down, Serbia’s ruling party SNS is still struggling to find a way to gain control of the situation. The signals it is sending are confusing to many observers. And an almost-accident is giving rise to conspiracy theories.

Was it sabotage? Was it staged?

A video showing an almost accident Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić was involved in on Saturday is giving rise to conspiracy theories.

While conspiracy theories are very popular on the Balkans, that and how they are spreading here is all too typical of the political situation Serbia is in right now.

Central issues are unresolved

Mass protests led by students have all but taken over public space in the country. On Sunday, students had started blockading Gazela bridge, a crucial connection between the city center of the capital Beograd and Novi Beograd.

They were staging the protest on the 100th day after the collapse of a canopy of the freshly renovated train station of Novi Sad on November 1st. The debris killed 15 people.

Ever since then, citizens and students have been demanding that those responsible for the tragedy be held accountable, and that police and prosecutors carry out proper investigations, which they demand should be properly documented to the public. Many link the catastrophe of Novi Sad to rampant corruption in Serbia – which again links to Serbia’s ruling party, of which President Vučić is the figurehead.

Some construction companies who renovated the train station in Serbia’s second biggest city have close ties to SNS.

Growing parts of the population support the protests which are lead by students. Every major university in the country has been on strike for two months, many schools have joined in what the students call blokada – blockade.

Major events have mobilized hundreds of thousands of Serbians to take to the street on individual days, much like last weekend. During the week, there are dozens of protests all over the country on any given day, with literally tens of thousands of participants.

It’s not just the bigger cities and towns, as one would expect. The mass protests have long spread to the countryside. Villages with less than 600 inhabitants have seen at least one rally in the past weeks.

Protests erupted on Friday

On Friday, protests erupted somewhat violently for the first time in the town of Bogatić in Western Serbia. Protesters forcefully entered town hall and escorted a leading local SNS representative out of the building.

This protest was not just about the train station of Novi Sad and supporting the countrywide students‘ protests.

Last year, the SNS led government approved the construction of Lithium mines on the territory of Bogatić. The town’s inhabitants fear that this will have a catastrophic impact on the environment and oppose the mines.

Protests last year did not make the government budge, and the prospect of reliable Lithium supply has led the EU, and most of all the German government, to back Vučić and his administration.

Batteries new lithium. Electric cars need batteries. The EU’s climate policies heavily rely on electric cars.

The students‘ protests have let the issue flare up again.

As if this weren’t enough, all theaters in Beograd, Novi Sad, Sombor and Zrenjanin will go on strike for a week, starting Monday. The strike explicitely supports the students‘ demands for the rule of law to be restored in Serbia, and a determined campaign against corruption in the country.

A Ruling Party and Conspiracy Theories

In the midst of all this, SNS is struggling to regain control of the situation, and is trying to paint the protests as being incited by outside powers, and a threat to the very integrity of the Serbian state.

On Friday, President Vučić announced that the government would hold a rally that would clarify that the norther province of Vojvodina was an integral part of the country. He implicitely accused some of the protesters to really fight for the independence of the autonomous province. He wouldn’t let this happen.

While everybody was expecting that Kontramiting (a local term for government protests against anti-government protests) to take place on Sretenje, the Day of Serbia’s Statehood on February 15th, SNS surprisingly bussed in people from all over the country to the small Vojvodin town of Kikinda this Saturday already.

The Kontramiting was held in a sports hall, with Vučić as the main speaker.

In his speech, he repeated the conspiracy theories SNS had been spreading to delegitimize the protests. This was an attempted color revolution, Vučić said – referring to the revolutions that changed the political landscape in the Ukraine and the Caucasus in the mid 2000’s.

Serbian activists from the Otpor movement which had – partly – ousted Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević in October 2000 had played a crucial role in these color revolution. Unlike in 2000, by the time of the color revolutions, Otpor activists enjoyed some financial backing by the US government.

In the past months, some protesters used slogans and symbols that reference this only successful popular uprising in Serbian history – which SNS uses as evidence that the apparent unrest in the country isn’t really dissatisfaction with and frustration over the 12 year rule the party has had over the country so far, but a result of outside meddling.

Vučić went so far as to say that unnamed outside agencies had spent hundreds of millions of Euros to destabilize Serbia.

But, he said, he would prevail: „By Vidovdan (June 28th) I will have finished my book: How I Defeated the Color Revolution“.

Vidovdan, the day of St. Vitus, is the religious holiday most closely associated with the Serb nation. Among other things, it marks the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, in which the Serbian army failed to defeat the Ottoman invaders. This is largely seen as the beginning of Ottoman rule over the Kingdom of Serbia and subsequently large parts of the Balkans.

In the 19th century, the battle was elevated to be essentially the founding moment of Serbia as a nation.

It hardly gets any more symbolic than that.

Was This The Kontramiting Vučić Announced?

Yet, Vučić’s speech left quite a few observers confused.

Was this the Kontramiting he had announced for February 15th?

And was there any strategy to regain control of the situation other than appealing to his own sympathizers with well known conspiracy theories?

Vučić had successfully tried this playbook to buy crucial time a year and a half ago, when another wave of mass protests had shaken the country after a series of deadly shootings in a Beograd school and the town of Mladenovac that left almost 30 people dead.

He had used this playbook again last year, when mass protests erupted after his government had granted concessions to mine Lithium in the Drina Valley.

But none of these protests ever came close to the current wave of mass protests.

According to activists, there has only been one municipality in all of the country where no protests marches have taken place so far. Although this can not be confirmed independently, the information seems plausible.

And, if the speech in Kikinda was the announced Kontramiting, would he really leave the Sretenje national holiday to the students who are organizing a host of events that will dominate public space in the country on February 15th?

Or was there to be yet another government rally next week, possibly in Novi Sad, the capital of the autonomous provice of Vojvodina – and the place of the tragic accident that sparked the mass protests in the first place. To say that the general mood in the city has worsened to distanced towards SNS and Vučić would be putting it politely – although the party and the President have retained a sizebale followership there.

If so, Vučić would be attempting a show of power. It would be asking who was stronger. Him or the students?

Perhaps this is the plan after all.

If so, it is risky.

If Vučić and SNS have a plan at all at this moment.

Amidst all this confusion, the video of Vučić’s almost-accident serves as a welcome, albeit unplanned, distraction, as it gives rise to yet more speculation and conspiracy theories. Perhaps all the more so as he was just on his way back from the speech he had held in Kikinda.

Focussing on this single event, finding an explanation for it, however unlikely, makes the general confusion seem a bit less threatening.

„Undeclared State of Emergency“

At the same time, some observers sympathetic to the mass protests, and some participants, are expressing scepticism about the movement’s prospects.

Tonino Picula, Member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for EU membership talks with Serbia, says the country was in an „undeclared state of emergency“ and sees a deadlock between the protesters and the government.

In a democracy, fundamental conflicts would ultimately have to be resolved in negotiations and elections, Picula stressed in an interview. And currenty, there appeared to be no consensus on that issue.

The students have so far refused to enter any negotiations about their demands with Vučić, who they rightfully say has no constitutional authority to address anything they demand. They also do not demand new elections, who they and many others think will be rigged if they take place under the control of an SNS run government.

At the same time, Vučić refuses to nominate a government of independent experts to run the country, or a transitional government to be in charge of affairs until snap elections. As a matter of fact, he has not nominated anyone to head the new government the country needs on constitutional grounds.

Two weeks ago, the entire cabinet had resigned over the mass protests. Technically speaking, the resignation is not in force yet as the National Assembly has not held a session in which the resignation was ratified. This is expected to happen in early March.

After this, a new cabinet has to be formed within 30 days. Should this not happen, Vučić has to call general elections within 45 days.

Many think the President is buying time to prepare for these snap elections which would probably take place in mid May, hoping that SNS officials would still control the electoral process by this time.

Scepticism and Confusion

While many observers are optimistic that by then the protest movement would make this impossible, others think it will have probably lost momentum, and Vučić might win the game this way.

„The many protests in Beograd are not merging, and they are growing too slowly“, one activist told me a few days ago. „This is not a good sign“.

Others say that the working class does not play any role in the movement, which would deprive it of the power it needs to completely control the situation. While workers are the vast majority of protesters on Serbia’s streets, they are there as individuals.

With the exception of some unions, the few organisations the working class has in the country have not officially backed the protests – although members pressure some unions to do so.

The union of Beograd’s public transport workers for instance held a strike this week, over issues unrelated to the mass protests. The union demands a better and larger vehicle pool, and that schedules be adapted to provide efficient public transport in the growing capital.

While not declaring their support for the students‘ protests officially, striking transport workers joined the students in a protest march through the city center.

But overall, where the unions as a whole stand in this situation is as unclear as the situation is as a whole.

It seems that the only thing that really reigns Serbia is confusion. Maybe, this is a strategy after all.

Since the publication of this piece on Sunday, SNS announced that it would hold its official counter rally to the ongoing mass protests in Sremska Mitrovica, Vojvodina, on February 15th. It thus avoids the provincial capital Novi Sad. The announcement came on Monday night.

Some student organizations have since called for a blockade of all major roads to Sremska Mitrovica. SNS is expected to ferry in thousands of supporters in busses from all over the country. The blockade, should it happen, may well lead to a standoff between Serbia’s government and the students’ movement.

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