Green-Left Front: Every Anti-Regime Vote Necessary to Topple Establishment, University Students the Key to Opposition’s Dialogue

Radomir Lazovic (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Changing Serbia’s government will require every single vote of “the anti-regime front, whose only opponent is the [ruling] Serbian Progressive Party,” said Green-Left Front co-president Radomir Lazovic, and added that the protest movement led by the country’s university students could be key to coordinating the opposition and facilitating its dialogue.

In a statement for the April 20 edition of the Nova daily, Lazovic stressed that he would not discount any option so as to increase the possibility of bringing said front to life.

“Whether that happens via a union, multiple collaborating columns, or support to the university students, we need to agree on. The key question is what contributes most to a change of government and, based on that, our organs will determine how to enter the elections. To deal a final blow to this regime, all actors need to coordinate and in that sense I see the university student movement as the initiator and leader of this dialogue,” Lazovic explained.

In his opinion, the regime will seek to eschew elections and “avoid facing the will of the people.” “Vucic is avoiding elections foremost because his support is dwindling and he isn’t sure he can steal enough [votes], but also because there are big projects such as the EXPO, from which his tycoon associates need to profit at the expense of the people. Of course, they are also attempting to avoid legal accountability,” the opposition leader opined.

Commenting on Serbia’s pro-European bloc, Lazovic said his party cooperates well with other like-minded parties but that the Green-Left front is not focused on forming an electoral coalition.

“Together with the Free Citizens’ Movement, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Serbia Center party and the People’s Movement of Serbia, the Green-Left front has invested immense joint effort through its membership in large European political families to change the EU’s attitude toward [President Aleksandar] Vucic’s regime and that should be commended. How we run in the [next parliamentary] elections should depend on the assessment of how to most efficiently defeat the establishment and we are open to discussing this with anyone,” Lazovic concluded.