Vesna Pesic: Serbia Is Back to Autocracy and One-Party System

Vesna Pesic (Beta/Milos Miskov)

Former Alliance of Serbia leader Vesna Pesic said on Dec. 9 that 30 years after the introduction of party pluralism, Serbia has returned to autocracy and a one-party system of the 1945-1990 period.

Pesic told BETA that during the past three decades Serbia has had different political and democratic periods, but that the last eight years of [President] Aleksandar Vucic’s rule had pushed it back to autocracy and a single-party system.

“We haven’t succeeded in maintaining a multi-party system. We have not one big party in the opposition. In the 1990s, we had big opposition parties and their leaders were trusted, respected and loved by the people,” Pesic said.

“Since 2012, however, when the Serbian Progressive Party came to power, everything started to crumble. We no longer have elections, we have election boycotts. The media are fully dominated by the Progressive party, and our society has rolled back to autocracy and a single-party rule,” Pesic said.

Asked whether she sees any similarities between Slobodan Milosevic and Aleksandar Vucic, Pesic answered that Milosevic had a different “psychological structure.”

“Milosevic was busy with wars and rarely appeared in the media, as opposed to Vucic, who is having his breakfast on Pink TV and his dinner on the RTS [public service]. Milosevic had never personally attacked any opposition politician and had never been as prying as the incumbent Serbian president is,” Pesic said.