Experts: Joint Opposition, Student Ticket Would Lose More Votes than It Can Attract

students protest (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Senior scientific advisor at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory Dejan Bursac said on Nov. 20 that the opposition and students would not run on a joint ticket in the next elections, adding that a joint ticket would be a bad idea as it would not be mobilizing.

"It would lose more votes than it could attract. That, however, does not mean that there cannot be more tickets in elections that cooperate amongst themselves," Bursac told the Vreme weekly.

On the other side, he said, it was legitimate for the opposition to run in elections even though students had said that they did not want them, but in that case maturity was needed to run in elections in a way that contributed to beating the regime. "There must be no fragmentation, but they have to make tickets that can truly cross the threshold, there must not be mutual perceptions of arguments and division, which was a problem in some electoral cycles when we saw friction over tickets," he said.

He added that the most important thing was that the student ticket was not attacked, even though he believed that a part of the opposition would be compelled to do so, to take over voters. "But that is tactically not good. If you attack someone who has become a political and moral authority for the majority of your voters, you might fare even worse and additionally lose voters," Bursac said.