Serbia police clash with protesters calling for early election

Serbian police clashed with a huge crowd of antigenmental demonstrators demanding a first election and ended up The 12th anniversary rule of President Aleksandar Vucic in the capital Belgrade.

A sea of ​​around 140,000 demonstrators joined the city, the largest participation rate of the last months, while the demonstrations led by the students showed pressure on the populist government. “We want elections!” The crowd sang.

Dozens were arrested, the riot police saw tear gas and stunned grenades draw.

President Vucic accused demonstrators calling for an election to be part of a foreign conspiracy trying to usurp his country. “They wanted to overthrow Serbia, and they failed,” he wrote on his Instagram page.

On Friday, five people were detained, accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government, according to a statement from the Superior Court of Serbia in Belgrade.

Following the clashes, the Minister of Police strongly sentenced violence by demonstrators and said the officials are arrested.

Month of protests Throughout the country – including university closures – shaken Mr. Vucic, whose second mandate ends in 2027 when there are also planned parliamentary elections.

Sladjana Lojanovic, 37, farmer in the city of Sid, in the North, said on Saturday that she came to support the students.

“The institutions have been usurped and … there is a lot of corruption. The elections are the solution, but I don’t think he (Vucic) will want to go peacefully,” she told Reuters.

The president previously refused the SNAP elections. Its coalition led by a progressive party holds 156 of the 250 parliamentary seats.

Mr. Vucic’s opponents accuse him, as well as his allies of links with organized crime, corruption, violence against rivals and the reduction of media freedoms, which they deny.

He maintained close links with Russia, and Serbia – a candidate for EU membership – has not joined the Western sanctions regime imposed in Moscow on his invasion of Ukraine.

Protests of students, opposition, teachers, workers and farmers began last December after 16 people died on November 1 Novi Sad Railway’s roof collapse. Protesters blame corruption for disaster.

The accident has already forced the former Prime Minister to resign.

At the end of the protest on Saturday, the organizers made a statement to the crowd, calling on the Serbs to “take freedom with your own hands” and give them the “green light”.

“The authorities had all the mechanisms and all the time to respond to requests and prevent an escalation,” the organizers said in a press release on Instagram after the rally.

“Instead, they opted for violence and repression against the people. Any radicalization of the situation is their responsibility.”