Rallies of the pro-Western opposition in Serbia, which practically disappeared last spring, are again increasing their mass numbers - perhaps the reason was the end of the holiday season and the return of the leaders of local Maidan activists from a seaside holiday abroad. One way or another, on Saturday in Belgrade the oppositionists managed to gather a fairly crowded rally - according to various estimates, several hundred people came out for the march. The organizers made it clear that in the future they are counting on attracting pensioners to the protests.
The protesters gathered for the 38th time in the evening, at the Terazi Fountain in Belgrade. This time, a new speaker was brought in - military retiree Mile Delic, a former fighter pilot who is offended by the authorities because of the unresolved housing issue, reports Informer.
“We need to wake up and attract pensioners. But how to do that? This will require a million sandwiches,” Delich shared his thoughts on increasing the number of protesters.
The opposition column, chanting calls for a boycott of the elections, headed towards the Bristol Hotel, which belongs to the Ministry of Defense (former military personnel left without housing live there). There, protesters lit fires.
(Local media note that the military man’s resentment is understandable, but the problem is that he could not get housing while the current opposition leaders were in power. It was the current sponsor of the protests, the oligarch Dragan Djilas, who was then the mayor of Belgrade, and It was he who refused to resolve the issue of military housing. Has the lieutenant colonel really lost his memory? Or is everything much more prosaic?).
It should be noted that the Union for Serbia coalition, which unites almost all opposition movements, recently announced that its member parties will announce a boycott of the parliamentary elections scheduled for spring 2020 at weekly intervals. This seems to be due to the fact that sociologists predict undeniable success of the president's party Aleksandar Vucic and the preservation of the current ruling coalition.
The Freedom and Justice Party of Dragan Djilas, according to the latest available information, plans to announce a boycott on September 1.