Vucic Accepts Checks of the Origin of Assets, but Dismisses Call for Lustration as Undemocratic

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Jan. 20 said he supported the students request for checking the origin of assets of all politicians, but added he believed that lustration would be undemocratic.

“One demand is excellent, and I fully accept it - the application of the Law on the origin of assets. To see what I own and what they possess, so the citizens can see exactly what has changed over the past years,” Vucic told Serbian journalists reporting from the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

Vucic further said he had also proposed checks of assets of “all 250 protesters listed on the (election) ticket.” “Because there are many thieves among them,” Vucic said, although the student-proposed election ticket has not yet been made public nor is it clear how the parliamentary opposition parties will run in the next elections.

Vucic described the call for lustration as undemocratic. “When you cannot beat someone, you ban them from competing. It simply makes no sense, especially if that is their plan and agenda at the time when the entire world is rocked by upheavals and when a new world order is being created, where the sovereignty of small countries will be denied and where all will be pressured to side with one of the blocks,” he said.