Vučić: People should know that when they vote for students, they are voting for our list

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stated today that citizens who want to vote for students can vote for the current government's list of candidates, stating that there will be many students on it, while the student list, which the students in the blockade have been announcing from the beginning, "will not have any."

"The fact that there will be no students on the student list is like having planes without pilots, because you don't know who will fly them (...) One of the slogans of those of us who want a normal and decent Serbia could be that people vote for students, because there will be many students on our list, since there will be none on their list. So people can know that when they vote for students, they are voting for our list," Vučić told journalists from Serbia accompanying him on his visit to Baku, Azerbaijan.

According to him, when students were asked where they won, since they were running in local elections, they "admit themselves that they won in the medical and bar associations."

"They have turned our guilds into party associations. Do you understand where that is leading us? It is leading us into the company of (former Cambodian dictator) Pol Pot and (former Ugandan president) Idi Amin. It is leading us into the worst possible dictatorship," he said.

Speaking about the Memorandum on Kosovo and Metohija brought by the students in the blockade, Vučić said that they "argued about it more than anything else."

"Because some would like to attract patriotically oriented voters, but this majority does not let them, and makes it clear to them that Kosovo is independent and that they should not talk about it," claims Vučić.

According to him, the students in the blockade do not understand the situation in Kosovo and Metohija and blame the Serbian List for the poor treatment of Serbs living in those areas.

"These arrogant, haughty, young people don't know that we give a lot of money to our people in Kosovo and Metohija. They have no connections. They don't understand anything and they don't understand anything. They only know how to go against their own state and criticize their own people," Vučić said.

He assessed that the government was to blame for not starting "the fight to explain to people what was happening" with the student protests in time, adding that they were late for the first three or four months.

"All my associates convinced me, probably afraid of the force on the streets, in fear a person often tarnishes his face... After that, when we made the decision to stand up, things started to change and today things are going well," Vučić said.

Asked how he views the criticism directed at the authorities for establishing the "Faculty of Serbian Studies" in Niš, he said that the state will continue to help and support this newly formed higher education institution.

"The Faculty of Serbian Studies is a good faculty with good subjects and substance (...) The people don't mind it. Some people are losing some of their personal privileges, so they are protesting," said Vučić.

Students and citizens have protested on several occasions over a letter from the Ministry of Education, which reached the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, revoking the operating license of the departments of Serbian studies, history and Russian language and stating that they will be part of the future "Faculty of Serbian Studies".