In Serbia, the fight for “green” votes turns badly
In a Facebook post on September 10, activist Marija Alimpic predicted that the uprising would end up “deceiving the people”. She accused Cuta of cooperating with Serbian Minister of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection Zorana Mihajlovic and claimed he was using the environmental movement as a launching pad for an election candidacy presidential election of 2022.
A day after the Belgrade demonstration, 23 organizations reportedly broke ranks, accusing Cuta of authoritarianism. Some later denied signing Cuta’s official denunciation.
The controversy seems to have political roots:
Former Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic’s People’s Party has been attacking Cuta for months, claiming he is in cahoots with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, leader of the SNS.
Alimpic’s Facebook post was published by the Direktno portal, close to the Freedom and Justice Party, SSP, led by the former mayor of Belgrade Dragan Djilas.
There is speculation that it was Cuta’s refusal to allow some opposition politicians – including Miroslav Aleksic, a senior member of Jeremic’s People’s Party – to speak at the rally in Belgrade that sparked breaking. Alimpic is known to cooperate with the People’s Party.
Cuta is often cited in the Serbian public as a potential challenger to Vucic in the next presidential election. The same can be said of SSP vice-president Marinka Tepic and, to a lesser extent, Aleksic.
Cuta’s potential candidacy poses a danger to the mainstream opposition, as does his close collaboration with the “Don’t Drown in Belgrade†movement and Together for Serbia, two organizations whose leaders, Radomir Lazovic and Nebojsa Zelenovic, have taken over. speaking during the demonstration in Belgrade.
Many believe their potential alliance between the left and the Greens could hurt the ruling Progressive Party’s chances of retaining power in the capital in local elections also scheduled for next year, as well as garnering votes from the mainstream opposition. .
These traditional opposition parties are doing precisely what they accuse the Cuta of: exploiting the environmental malaise to promote their own political ambitions. But there is an important difference.
Cuta’s ORSP managed to mobilize more people within a year than the mainstream opposition did in many years, and Cuta really kept environmental issues in the public eye.
The relentless demonization of its opponents by the Progressive Party succeeds because it contains elements of truth, especially when it comes to politicians who were once in power – former Democratic Party members like Jeremic and Djilas, now scattered among smaller parties seeking voters in constituencies.
The point is that a significant portion of the Serbian public would rather see an activist or celebrity as president than any of the established opposition politicians.
In addition, the activists of the Ecological Uprising also know how to handle the smear campaigns of the Progressive Party. They have already been called traitors and foreign agents and they have experience in dealing with staged counter-demonstrations. Members of the traditional opposition are easier targets as most of them were part of the former Democratic Party governments, which many Serbs do not remember well.