A bloc is forming around Zelenović that will not look like the others – Politika

Vučić has taken all the political positions and walks around that area with a sovereign populism, and other parties are trying to define themselves towards him, which is wrong because he doesn’t have a position, and therefore not everyone else. And if they do find it from time to time, they do so from positions to the right of those in power.

Photo: Media Center

That is why a political weight is necessary, otherwise we will capsize this ship on the right and we will drown. I see the program of the parties around Nebojsa Zelenovic as that label, as an alternative, points out Dubravka Stojanovic, historian and professor at the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, in a conversation about the columns that form in the Serbian political scene and the reasons of your support. .

“My impression is that something has finally started to move on the political scene and that a bloc is forming around Nebojsa Zelenovic that will not look like everyone else. First of all, because I see ideas clearly formulated in (your) ‘three points’, which is mostly not the case in our politics. Since the founding of opposition parties, the majority of them have always been on the right side of the political field, and there was a lack of parties that dealt with real people rather than unrealistic national goals. Now we are in a serious lack of ideas, “says Stojanović.

* Shortly after you, the architect Dragoljub Bakić also gave his support to Zelenović, and soon several other public figures expressed praise for this policy. Are you under the impression that a new kind of Appeal 100 is forming around the Together for Serbia, GDF and NDB coalition, and do you hope that more prominent names will support this program?

– Appeal 100 went to a man as a presidential candidate. That was very important at the time, and because of the presidential elections, it necessarily focused on the person. Now is the time to stop dealing only with personalities, “who after Vučić” questions, but to ask essential questions: how to renew Serbia, which is now a burned-out country. So what program do you follow? That vision of the future was unclear in 1990 or 2000, and now is the last moment to finally decide what we want. Until now, we have not seen the society from the nation, we have dealt with heavenly issues and neglected the citizens. That has now exploded in our faces with the pandemic, we see that disintegration at every step. Therefore, I hope that this bloc will clearly formulate, in addition to the well-known three points, its social and economic policy, which will be an alternative to the neoliberal model. The cataclysms in which everyone lives, from natural disasters to pandemics, seek new solutions. A minimal neoliberal state cannot help a society that simply cannot combat these plagues. If a certain number of people gather around these points of the program, I think then there will be so many “new faces” requested and needed.

* In the recent past, we have seen situations where intellectuals, actors, activists support a politician or a political option, and after a while they withdraw their voice, change their opinion and become disappointed. What should politicians do to prevent this from happening to them?

– That is why I think this time the coalition around Zelenović is good. So let’s first see what is the minimum program around which the united parties and movements agree and from what it will not deviate. That minimalist program must also express a clear system of values ​​that they uphold. And it would be important to accept that with principles and with firmness, to forget the vanity and who likes it and who doesn’t. If you have a large opposition bloc in a bag, disagreements are mandatory, we have seen that. It is encouraging for me that in this block there is now, in addition to Zelenovic, who was a fantastic mayor of Sabac, Zoran Vuletic, who was the deputy mayor of Zvezdara and, of course, let’s not drown Belgrade, who just showed how The city can open up all key political issues, from the environment, to the rule of law, to the fight against corruption. These are people who have shown that they know what the real problems are, so I hope they will be joined by other local movements in Serbia. I see it as the right way, to stand with both feet on the ground and see where we are.

* The public talks a lot about the divisions within the opposition, the formation of various columns for some upcoming elections and who could form a coalition with whom. How do you see this opposition grouping? Is that a sign that they learned from some previous mistakes and that they could follow the Montenegrin opposition scenario?

– From what I understand, when we talk about these divisions, we are talking about mutual rivalries of political figures, and not about disagreements on the programs. That is one of the main problems of our politics: relationships are always personal, first we love each other and then we don’t like each other. And citizens are losing all confidence in parties, politics, democracy, institutions and are experiencing their political depression. That is terribly irresponsible, because it has fatal consequences for society and political culture. I’ve always been for more columns, but not on the basis of love-hate, but on ideas. And not only that, it can bring a better electoral result for the opposition, but also because it will contribute to the political maturation of society. It is important that society is pluralized, that it begins to recognize different political colors, that it stops being only “for and against”. Let’s finally get a normal, mature, politically developed and divided Serbia instead of the imaginary first and second Serbia.

* What do you see as the main problem or the most important question about when the current government has the least support from the citizenry at this time? Could the opposition use that and how?

– The opposition must listen to the citizens. First of all, “hear” that horrible sense of helplessness from an ordinary person. Kill society. What can a citizen leave to himself in a pandemic, what can all those who will fail due to the “lockdown” do without the intended help of the state? What to do when you win the job for the party card, leave people without any hope of being able to change positions, completely kill society. What will citizens do with the consciousness of complete anarchy, without trust in the judicial system? So there is no normal life, there is no economy, nothing … What is going to scare and deafen the citizen the noise of the tabloids and the hatred that springs every day from the state media. What without freedom? Today we are a desperate society and the only solution that citizens see is to run as far as possible. That is our complete defeat. That is the starting point.

Pareo

* Can we expect any change in society if other political and social actors are not clearly defined according to these three points: turning Serbia to the West, dialogue to solve the Kosovo problem and new people in politics? Why did both the government and the opposition, decades ago, flirt with these issues and “sit on three chairs” as you said earlier?

– They probably think “matchmaking” is politics. It is not.

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