Serbia Against Violence Belgrade Campaign Rally: Vote Without Fear

Serbia Against Violence Belgrade Campaign Rally, Dec. 12 2023 (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

In the evening of Dec. 12, following the conclusion of their election campaign rally which drew thousands of supporters to Belgrade’s Trg Republike square, representatives of the Serbia Against Violence coalition stated that “change has already begun – change for the better” and that, on Dec. 17, voters should cast their ballots without fear.

The rally participants, many of whom bore Serbian flags, filled the capital’s entire downtown square and the surrounding streets, which were closed to traffic.

One of the coalition ticket’s two main candidates, Freedom and Justice Party vice president Marinika Tepic, called on the public to “banish evil” with their Dec. 17 votes.

“Without fear, we will not yield to the propaganda that [the regime] cannot be removed, that they are untouchable. That is not true and they know it. Hence their rage, hence their anger,” Tepic said.

Her co-candidate, People’s Movement of Serbia leader Miroslav Aleksic, told the gathering that the incumbent regime has kept the public “manacled by injustice, poverty, violence, crime and corruption” for the past ten years.

“On Sunday [Dec. 17], we will crush those manacles. [We will] crush them [so as to achieve] a normal life and a better Serbia, decent and normal wages, to eliminate violence from [our] society along with crime and corruption,” Aleksic concluded.