Former Supreme Court President: Vucic Orchestrating Coup, Changing Ministers Like Toys

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

Former Supreme Court of Serbia president Vida Petrovic Skero said on Sept. 25 that "a coup is currently being carried out by the Serbian president, who is openly taking into his hands the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government."

"A coup is by definition a dismissal of the government by anti-Constitutional means by a political faction, the military or a senior state official. And what is happening here? For some time now, and now nakedly and unconstitutionally, the president has been controlling the entire executive government," Skero said in an interview with the Vreme weekly.

She said that "no one knows anymore not just who are the ministers, but the prime minister too," she said stressing that Vucic "is changing them like toys. He is publicly humiliating the prime minister, who has the biggest constitutional powers in internal politics. He threatens holders of judicial offices if they do not act as he expects," she added.

She stressed that the citizen and student protests could not be called a coup. "If the government is changed in the street, that is called a revolution. The students have only asked that institutions do their job, that those responsible for tragedies are called to account and that elections are scheduled. That is not a revolution by the legitimate demands of citizens," Skero explained.