Lutovac Says Faction Trying to Steer Democratic Party toward Cooperation with Vucic

Zoran Lutovac (BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS)

Democratic Party president Zoran Lutovac has said that he will hand in a regular report on his work at a a steering commission session on May 31, just like the president of the party's executive board, and that all current political themes and directions of action will be discussed.

"The main question is do we want to be the opposition to [Aleksandar] Vucic or an accomplice to him. Do we want to be a strong opposition to authoritarianism or his satellite, a so-called constructive opposition? Are we going to be in the service of citizens or will we go after our petty interests," Lukovac told the May 21 edition of Nedeljnik.

"Since this leadership received the membership's trust to lead the party, there have been constant obstructions within the party, mostly by those who would formulate their alternative platform as: Vucic has taken over our policy and we shouldn't oppose it," Lutovac said.

"In other words," he said, "we should support him in implementing this kind of policy."

"Even though this is not true, the justification of cooperating with Vucic is humiliating. This autocrat is leading a policy that has brought us from being a unconsolidated democracy to becoming a hybrid regime, which has moved us away from European and general civilization values," Lutovac stressed.