The action in the fight against corruption in Serbia, namely the arrest of the former acting director of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS), Milorad Grčić, would not have happened if it were not for the student protests because the institutions are working at the behest of the authorities, assessed economist Saša Đogović.
He added that this only supports the students' claim that institutions do not function, but rather operate according to the dictates of the authorities, or rather, based on "television control".
Grčić, the mayor of Obrenovac, was arrested yesterday morning in an anti-corruption operation, on the orders of the Higher Public Prosecutor in Belgrade, on suspicion that he and his associates damaged EPS while he was at the head of that company.
Grčić was appointed acting director of EPS on March 15, 2016. Officially, he was supposed to stay there until the end of the competition for the director of that company, or at most a year, but he remained in office until January 2022.
He then resigned due to several catastrophic accidents at EPS, when poor coal quality caused almost all production units to stop, leaving 130.000 households without electricity.
Just a few days after leaving EPS, he became assistant to the mayor of Obrenovac, and in July 2024, he was elected mayor of that municipality.
At the end of 2020, after the formation of the Serbian Government, the Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlović filed two criminal charges against Grčič, but neither the Government nor the Prosecutor's Office reacted.
In yesterday's police operation, controversial businessman Aleksandar Papić, best known to the public as a former friend and godfather of former Police Minister Nebojša Stefanović, was also arrested. Papić, as reported by N1, was being questioned in the case of a financial investigation against the Veljko Belivuk clan.
According to the media, he is the de facto owner of the company that is suspected of winning rigged tenders for EPS in collusion with Grčić.
Saša Đogović told Beta news agency that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić announced the fight against corruption a month ago, saying that citizens would witness more arrests. According to him, this work is the responsibility of prosecutors and courts, as separate branches of government, and not the president of the state, which confirms the students' thesis that institutions are "captured".
He pointed out that fighting corruption in this way will only intensify protests and confirm the thesis that institutions in Serbia are working at the push of a button.
"The action against corruption will not suppress, atomize and dampen the dissatisfaction of students, which is the goal of the arrests to show that the institutions in the state are working and that there is no need to continue the protests," said Đogović.
He stated that the arrest for corruption was organized for political reasons, because if they were working, the institutions would have initiated it earlier, and not five years after the accident at the Nikola Tesla thermal power plant in Obrenovac.
"Ultimately, we need to see how these court processes will proceed, because they can be watered down. Citizens witnessed the arrest of businessman Miroslav Mišković when the Serbian Progressive Party (SPS) came to power, which turned out to be marketing. I'm not saying that it will happen now, but the distrust in institutions is so great that it cannot be expected that it will soften the edge of the protests," said Đogović.
He added that the arrest campaign exposes the mechanism of rule of the current SNS-SPS coalition, although it had another goal, which was to show that a systemic fight against bribery and corruption is being waged in Serbia.
The anti-corruption campaign will not suppress, atomize, and dampen student dissatisfaction, which is the goal of the arrests to show that the institutions in the state are working and that there is no need to continue the protests.
The latest results of the Corruption Perception Index for 2024, he said, show that this is not true, as Serbia's position on that table has deteriorated compared to 2023, and it is the worst result since 2012.
"The crisis of authority in the government will not stop, the erosion of trust in institutions and the decline in the rating of the leading party will continue, and if there are any effects from the arrests, they will be short-lived," said Đogović.
He pointed out that the courts, as separate branches of government, are expected to entertain themselves by investigating corruption and the reasons for the five-fold increase in the price of the reconstruction of the canopy at the Novi Sad Railway Station, but that there are still no answers.
President and MP of the Democratic Party (DS) Srđan Milivojević stated that the arrest of Grčić and 14 other individuals connected to fraud in EPS represents a simulation of the fight against crime and corruption.
Milivojević told Beta that if the prosecution and police want to start the fight against corruption, they should start arresting people at the top of the state criminal pyramid.
Everywhere in the world, he added, the fight against organized crime and corruption starts at the top of government.
"Ten years ago, Aleksandar Vučić said that Grčić was his choice, and I don't understand why the police are arresting Grčić, and not the leader of an organized crime group who is responsible for all the crimes and misdeeds in this country. The police are arresting someone who may have oversalted the roast in his roastery, and not arresting those responsible for the deaths of 15 people at the Novi Sad Railway Station, where 45 million euros were stolen in a corruption scandal," said the DS president.
Milivojević added that the arrested Aleksandar Papić admitted to being a participant in a major corruption scandal involving the construction of the Ruma-Šabac road.
"We published Papić's letter to Vučić in which he states that with the consent of Siniša Mali, the value of the road construction works was increased from 50 million to 75 million euros and that 10 million euros of that difference went to the party (SNS), and that 15 million euros were divided between Zvonko Veselinović and subcontractors. Papić complained because he was left without the promised six million euros. The prosecution did not launch an investigation into this affair, and therefore it is no wonder that Serbia, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, is the most corrupt country in Europe," Milivojević pointed out.
“A transparent play for the people”
Transparency Serbia Program Director Nemanja Nenadić said regarding the arrest of Grčić and Papić that this means that "some cases were sitting in drawers, that the prosecution knew about them, but that it was not allowed or wanted to investigate them, and that now, for some reason, it is starting to do so."
He added that there are people who are constantly employed to investigate corruption cases. "And then actions like this, especially when they are linked to announcements by the president and other officials - such actions cast a shadow on the ability of these state bodies to do their job properly," Nenadić told N1.
He also stated that "such actions are not part of something that could be considered the right path."
"The way all this has been done, I don't mean the prosecution but the announcements of the political leadership, creates a serious risk that tomorrow the defense attorneys hired by the defendants could rightfully say that a political process is being conducted against their clients, that the institutions did not act independently, and that something like the Mišković case could happen," he said.
Lawyer Rodoljub Šabić assessed that the arrests of Grčić and Papić were "a fairly transparent play for the people."
"This hint that some bombastic arrests are being made by some God knows how powerful people. What we are hearing now, to use an unconventional term - is in a different league. These are people against whom there have been criminal charges before," he said.
He added that "someone made an effort to confirm what the president announced." "I find this more than unconvincing. You can't create an atmosphere you didn't want to have with transparent illusions. No one believes in that anymore," he stressed.
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