Protest rally in Novi Sad (BetaPhoto/Katarina Redzic)
School of Physics dean Vojan Radovanovic said on Sept. 25 that fair elections would lower tensions in society, but that surveys had shown the authorities that they would not be able to win them in spite of all of their machinations.
"Elections should lower tensions in society. If the elections, however, are unfair again, if people are going to be brought in from the side to vote and all of the machinations that there is a justified reason to believe existed are perpetrated again, then elections will not solve the problem. The country is in huge instability," Radovanovic said in an interview with the NIN weekly.
"These protests have been going on for a long time. They were peaceful for a long time as well. The key to their success was precisely because they were peaceful. Whenever protests turn violent, the probability of their success decreases. But let's start from who has the most to gain from violent protests - the side that opposes them, and that is the government," Radovanovic said, adding that there were signs that the authorities had intentionally provoked incidents.
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