Serbia: Vučić holds first Novi Sad rally since protests began – with Fico at his side
Nine days before the parliamentary election, Aleksandar Vučić held a mass rally in the city of the station disaster. Without evidence, he accused foreign powers of funding the protests.
Symbolic image · Photo: ArhistefoBL / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Serbian populist Aleksandar Vučić on Friday held his first big rally in Novi Sad since protests began in November 2024. Almost two years earlier, 16 people died there when a concrete canopy collapsed at the railway station. According to the Associated Press, thousands of supporters attended, many bused in from other parts of the country. Vučić resigned as president last month to lead the campaign of his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and wants to become prime minister after the 25 October election.
"A lot of money came from abroad, billions were brought in to destroy Serbia," Vučić told the crowd. AP said he gave no evidence for his claim that foreign powers organised and financed the protests; he also promised justice for the victims. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spoke as a guest, addressing the crowd in Serbian and praising Vučić. Many in the crowd carried flags bearing the image of Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb commander convicted of genocide.
The main challenger to the SNS, in power for 14 years, is the Students' List backed by the protesting university students. Students had urged residents to stay away on Friday to avoid confrontation; AP reported no major incidents. No one has yet been held responsible for the disaster. Critics accuse the government of curbing democratic freedoms and of corruption, which it denies; Serbia's EU accession process has stalled.