Ponos of SRCE Party: Even Those Blackmailed and Indebted by the Authorities Disobey

Zdravko Ponos (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

The president of the Serbia Center (SRCE) party and a Member of Parliament, Zdravko Ponos, said that the assembly of the Movement for the People and the State made it clear that few supported or believed what the authorities were saying and promising.  

In an interview with BETA, Ponos said what disappointed the authorities even more was that even those they had blackmailed or indebted disobeyed.

In a comment on the demands Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic voiced during the convention, the opposition party president described them as an expression of "either incompetence or unwillingness to address properly the deep crisis the country has fallen into." Ponos also said the president’s speech revealed "resolve to deepen the crisis by addressing repeatedly and persistently only their voters, while antagonizing everyone else."

Commenting on Vucic's promise that anyone who organizes, supports, and participates in student blockades and protests will be arrested, Ponos said that the regime plans "rigid steps" to end the protests in April, and that Vucic will probably "rush into forcibly suppressing the protests by abusing the prosecutor's office, police, and security agencies."

When asked what he expected from the new government led by Dr Djuro Macut, Ponos said that it would be an unsuccessful attempt to do with a government of continuity what the previous one could not.

"The purpose of the new government is to buy Vucic a few more months during which he will try to resolve the crisis, which, judging by all he does, he does in a completely wrong way. It is clear that this is his bizarre mix of a transitional and an expert government," Ponos said.