While here we are carefully preparing the election battle for Belgrade, we had no idea that we would indirectly be involved in the election battle for the president of the USA. Because the announcement that the company of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the former head of the White House, will build luxury villas on the site of the destroyed General Staff building suggests, among other things, that the local authorities are rooting for his father-in-law, Donald Trump, to win it back.
There are several reasons for such a calculation. Polls show that voters there are more inclined to the former than the current president, Joe Biden. In addition, the local establishment assures its subjects that in Trump's approach to the Kosovo node, there is also a possibility for a certain improvement in the position of the Serbs. At the same time, he shows more understanding than Biden for autocracies, such as the one here. And above all, it presents itself as the flagship of the era of post-truth and alternative facts, whose zealous practitioners include the President of Serbia.
This opportunity, however, rather hinders Aleksandar Vučić in forecasting. He has already failed twice in predicting the outcome of the US presidential elections - when he bet on Hillary Clinton, Trump won, and when he was his favorite, Biden triumphed. So even now, when again, with the Kushner-General Staff arrangement, he shows favor to Trump, it can be seen as a sign of encouragement to Biden.
Although this arrangement surprised many, it has been on the table for some time and somewhat coincides with the path of Vučić and Trump to the top of the government. Trump saw the ruins of the General Staff as an opportunity for his real estate business back in 2013, the same year that Vučić, as the second man in the government, started building his way to the presidency. Since then, the project has been largely pushed by the president's envoy for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, and then by the acting head of the intelligence services, Richard Grenell.
And everything was refined in three moves, say the chroniclers: in September 2020 during Vučić's meeting with Trump in the White House, and then with Kushner in January 2023 in Davos, so that in October of the same year, he presented Grenel with the Order of the Serbian Flag of the First Class. Only four and a half months after that ceremony, a plan was revealed to build a skyscraper on the site where the ruins of the General Staff still stand.
This plan for a specific public-private partnership between Serbia and the Americans became a polemical hit both here and among them. Here, the opposition and the professional public reproach the authorities for "bombing Belgrade", making a mockery of the memory of the victims of the bombing and the valuable architectural heritage.
Grenell tries to portray the program as an ambition to "turn the symbol of the previous conflict into a bridge of friendship and renewal" and contribute to "healing wounds". And the interested public, both in America and abroad, mostly views the enterprise critically.
The New York Times, thus, brings the Belgrade operation under Trumpist neglect of responsibility for its own financial and other deviations, for which court proceedings are being conducted against it. So the case is treated as another corruption case and a conflict of interest, in which the former president's son-in-law and his official adviser profit by using these privileged statuses.
Kushner denies this and claims that he is solely dedicated to the work of his company Affinity Partners, in which the Saudis have a large share. However, analysts warn that the arrangement with Belgrade, still unsigned, could also be contested if his father becomes president again.
The impression is that the drama surrounding the role of real estate, with its enormous historical and market value, in the regulation of internal relations in the field of foreign policy is being played out for the first time. In the style of a staff (instead of a stick) and carrots, where the unfortunate fate of the General Staff revolved around the bait for collecting precious electoral points in both Serbia and America, as well as for promoting a new method for accelerated deterioration or repair of their mutual relations.
The fixation of Trump and Vučić for the reconstruction of the area destroyed by NATO bombing is unusual. It's as if the headquarters has become a carrot for them too.
Apart from a lucrative job, Trump cared about showing that he can fix what his predecessor (Bill Clinton) destroyed in 1999. And it was important for Vučić to remove the imposing reminder of the disastrous consequences of the government in which he was the Minister of Information by continuing the investment urbanism.
But that won't be enough for either of them to win back the White House or the Old Court. They will have to strain to free themselves from challenging the freely expressed will of the electorate.
Both claim that the elections are regular only if their side wins. Trump has not yet admitted the defeat that he convincingly suffered in 2020, and Vučić does not admit that his coalition did not win last December in Belgrade.
They will have to give up those alternative facts. Because the fact is that there are alternatives.
This is confirmed by the careers of these two leaders. Both of them changed parties. And both of them call for democracy, and behave, more or less, like autocrats.
The White House suffered that fate only four years in recent history. Now, here, the Old Palace simply longs for the spirit of autocracy, which has been imposed on it from the New Palace for 10 years, to be driven out of it as well.
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