At yesterday's session, the National Security Council approved the appointment of the official and deputy of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) Vladimir Orlić as the director of the Security and Information Agency (BIA), the Cabinet of the President of Serbia announced.
Vladimir Orlić was a member of the ruling SNS in the Serbian Parliament for several terms, and from 2022 to 2024 he was also the head of the Serbian parliament.
Opposition politicians in Serbia have assessed that Orlić does not have the qualifications to be elected to the post of BIA director, while government representatives believe that under him "the service will work in the best possible interest for the motherland".
Co-president of the Green-Left Front (ZLF) Radomir Lazović assessed that for citizens who care about a democratic and orderly society, it is "very bad news" that Orlić will be the new director of the BIA.
Lazović told the Beta agency that Orlić "proved himself to be a follower of Aleksandar Vučić in the position of President of the National Assembly" and that "mainly by attacking the opposition and stifling debate and subservient behavior".
"He didn't even run away from breaking the law" because he "played a major role in hiding the people's initiative to ban the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia" since that initiative, "although it was submitted to the office of the National Assembly, never reached the deputies", reminded Lazović .
"Orlić did not use one of the most important functions in the country, the function of the speaker of the parliament, to fulfill the interests of Serbia and its citizens, but exclusively to stifle any criticism of the Vučić regime," he said.
Lazović expects that Orlić at the head of the BIA "will do the same: he will continue to deal with ineligible citizens, to protect the criminal progressive octopus" which "the BIA has been doing until now, and with Orlić at the head, I think there will be even more attempts and escorts and subterfuge".
Deputy President of the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) Borko Stefanović assessed that in this way the BIA only "continues to serve the persecution and monitoring of the opposition and anyone who dares to raise their voice against the insecurity and violence in which the regime has kept us for 12 years".
Orlić's appointment as the head of the BIA, according to him, "continues the disintegration and harnessing of the national security service in the hands of the party's SNS clique, which also in this way preserves its criminal affairs, links with organized crime and bare power".
"By changing the system and power of the organized criminal group, serious changes will be made and the BIA will be returned to the framework of the law and the Constitution and its purpose in the service of the Serbian state and not criminals, money launderers and robbers," Stefanović said.
As the only good thing from the appointment of Orlić as head of the BIA, Stefanović cited the fact "that he will not be allowed to make statements and appear on television as an official regime disrupter of any dialogue."
The president of the Serbia Center (SRCE) party, Zdravko Ponoš, assessed on the social network Iks that Orlić "only has a last name" among the qualifications for the position.
"Orlić at the head of the BIA. The qualification has a surname. When the CIA has an eagle, then the BIA at least has Orlić. We follow America. At a rate," Ponoš wrote.
Orlić's colleague from SNS, deputy Vladimir Đukanović, said that under Orlić "the service will work in the best possible interest for the homeland".
"Full support for the Government of Orlić. A wonderful and virtuous man. A sincere patriot, a family man, a man who knows how to lead, highly educated... I believe that the service under him will work in the best possible interest for the motherland," Đukanović wrote on Iks.
Other officials of the Serbian Progressive Party sent support and congratulations to Orlić on social networks.
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