For two and a half months, the government has been struggling with the rebellious students, the only political actor they did not count on and for whom they did not have a ready and elaborate strategy of compromising and stifling. This has become a nightmare for the president of the state, the reason for his nervous and hyperactive media and Instagram addresses, in which he ineptly tries to give the impression that this political margin does not affect him. And it certainly does affect him. Especially since disciplining with bars, umbrellas and running over with cars, as a reflex of the regime's usual actions, has proven counterproductive. And since forecasts that this suddenly ignited energy would die down on its own, have proven to be empty hopes. Because, something even worse happened to the political elite, students massively took to the streets of Kragujevac, Brus, Valjevo, Aleksandrovac and other cities that were believed to be in a state of safe political hibernation.
And now, a study by the CRTA organization reveals what the government knows well, that the protests and blockades are supported by 61 percent of citizens, and that a quarter of those who watch pro-government media, and even every tenth member of the SNS, consider the students' demands and method of struggle justified. Finally, what the progressives feared most happened, the students began to stir up and even began to gnaw at their electorate. And not only in big cities, but also deep in the interior, where there was no other light except gas and where they could not hear any other voice except Vučić's.
And what does Vučić's cookbook say now? What are the guidelines from his rescue manual in case of danger of overthrowing the government? All resources of the system should be put into operation. There is no law or rule that will not be trampled on just to preserve the inviolable majority. The media under Vučić's control should deny the significance of the protests, minimize their strength and number, and suggest that they be shut down. At the same time, there is a campaign to bribe everyone who can support the protests or synergistically strengthen them. The emphasis is on educators and their unions. Overt violence should be replaced with covert violence. The beating must not be seen, but it must act even more strongly. The secret services should supply the media with students' personal documents so that they can invent subversions. Constantly repeat that foreign services are behind the protests. The BIA should practice and activate old methods of fighting the internal enemy. To intimidate parents, call students through intermediaries, detain, harass, eavesdrop, monitor, and send threatening messages from unknown numbers.
After the episode with Mila Pajić failed miserably, faced with the decentralized protest and its superior organization, they intend to find the leaders at all costs in order to pull them out of anonymity and publicly flog them or, if possible, corrupt them. Fake lists, private data and photographs of the alleged organizers are published as wanted notices. At the same time, they are working to dismantle solidarity between faculty administrations, professors and students, inciting and confronting different groups on the topic of exam deadlines. They are additionally severing ties between the opposition and students, and they have also enlisted the Ombudsman to help suppress the protests by allegedly protecting the endangered right of some students to take exams. As an echo, a story has been launched about loyalists who have sworn on blood to defend the government. And the public is being intimidated by alleged terrorists who will carry out a diversion in one city, who knows who, and in one hospital, who knows which, by turning off the power in intensive care, which will cause the death of patients, for which they will accuse the government...
It's a shaker from Vučić's cookbook. It's hot. But we'll see who gets burned by it in the end.
Bonus video:
