Vucic Invites Students to Debate, Students Say Debate Only Possible in Election Campaign

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/PREDSEDNISTVO SRBIJE/DIMITRIJE GOLL/MO)

On Aug. 22, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced that he was inviting the representatives of what he described as "the student and blockader movement" to a debate, saying that he wanted it to take place in front of all media outlets.

"This is my offer -- a more than fair one: As the president of the Republic I do not have the opportunity and right, even though I have been to the parliament countless times, to get at it with one political party, group or movement representative after the other. But with the legal and legitimate representatives of a broad movement I do want to talk, I want to enter a debate, and I want both of us to present our visions and our plans," Vucic said.

The students of the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy announced that they would only talk and debate with the president of Serbia as part of an election campaign. In response to Vucic's video issuing an invitation to a televised debate, the students posted on the X social media platform that the president "obviously" has no response to the people's revolt.

Get Going for Change movement leader Savo Manojlovic said one did not negotiate or form an interim cabinet with such a regime. Manojlovic characterized Vucic's video in which he states he is issuing an invitation to dialogue as "the action of a corrupt bully abusing everyone around him while hiding behind others. This is not a government that you disagree on political issues with. This is a corrupt occupation government that is trampling the fundamental constitutional concepts of democracy and the rule of law."