Serbia’s Prime Minister, Miloš Vučević, stepped down on Tuesday, citing a willingness to listen to protesters and government critics. His decision came after a violent incident involving government supporters and two students.
Mass protests have been rocking Serbia since the end of last year, sparked by a tragedy in the city of Novi Sad, where a collapsed roof at a train station killed 15 people in November. The protests, initially led by students, have spread across the country, with thousands of students occupying a major highway in the capital, Belgrade, for 24 hours on Monday.
The protests, which have been described as the largest since the anti-Slobodan Milošević demonstrations in 2000, have been met with claims of foreign interference and funding. Russian political analyst Andrei Manoilo believes that Western and US-backed NGOs are behind the protests, citing the country’s independent stance on the Ukraine conflict and its support for the Russian Federation.
Oleg Bondarenko, a Russian expert on the Balkans, notes that student protests have a long history in the region, dating back to the 1960s. He attributes the current protests to a deep-seated mistrust of the government, a characteristic of the Serbian mentality.
The protests have seen a growing number of professional groups joining the demonstrations, with the lawyers’ association, post services and the national electricity grid all being affected. The government, led by President Alexander Vučić, has announced plans to hold new elections in April, with a decision to be made after a 10-day consultation period.
The crisis, according to Bondarenko, is the most severe in the last quarter of a century and the government’s only hope is to resolve the situation quickly and with minimal losses. Failing to do so could lead to a power shift, potentially even a color revolution, with the support of the West.