Students Demand that Elections Be Called by June 28, Otherwise There Will Be All-Out Civil Disobedience

Students ZEMUN Photo: Nikola Sablic

The students blockading higher education institutions in Belgrade have demanded that a snap general election be called by 9 p.m. on June 28, the Serbian national and religious St. Vitus Day holiday, otherwise they expect that "citizens will be ready to take all existing measures of civil disobedience."

In an open letter to the Serbian government, which they posted on Instagram, the students are asking that it send the president of the Republic, in line with the Constitution, a reasoned proposal to dissolve parliament and call an early general election by that time.

"The incumbent Cabinet was given a mandate by the Assembly of Serbia, which does not reflect the current political situation in the country. The regime has shown that it no longer has the capacity to lead the state through the biggest social and political crisis in the last few decades," said the students, who started the blockade more than half a year ago, after the collapse of a recently renovated outdoor canopy at the Novi Sad railway station which killed 16 people. Since then, they have been demanding that those responsible for the tragedy, caused by corruption, be punished.

According to them, the biggest protests in the history of Serbia have "delegitimized this regime," which is why already on May 5 they called for the organizing of a snap general election.

The students also said that elections were a fundamental mechanism of every democratic society that had been brought to a high level of distrust in institutions, stressing that there was no alternative solution to the ongoing crisis.