The Serbian Prosecutor’s Office has charged 13 people in connection with the tragedy in Novi Sad, including former Minister of Construction and Transport Goran Vesič. Students continue to protest.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Tuesday called on opposition parties to vote together to call a non-binding referendum in which citizens could vote on whether he should remain in office. Vučič responded to the endless protests after the tragedy in Novi Sad. Last November 1, 15 people died there after a shelter at a renovated train station collapsed, and the public is demanding accountability. TASR reports according to the HINA agency.
Vučič addressed the challenge to the opposition shortly after the public opinion poll of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) was published. In it, up to 61 percent of respondents said that they support the current protests. Support was also expressed by every tenth voter of the government parties and a quarter of voters who get their information from media close to the government.
In the call for the referendum, the Serbian president stated that “legitimacy is the most important thing in politics and that sovereignty results from the will of the people.” Vucic emphasized that he does not want to stay in office even one more day without support.
He called on opposition MPs to provide 67 signatures to declare a referendum, and his Serbian Progressive Party would add another 100.
Students continue to protest
The Serbian prosecutor’s office has already charged 13 people in connection with the collapse of the shelter at the end of December, including former Minister of Construction and Transport Goran Vesič, who resigned a few days after the tragedy. However, students continue to protest and say that adequate accountability has still not been held.
The railway station building was renovated by a consortium of two Chinese, one Hungarian and one French company, but the shelter itself was not affected by the renovation.
Vučič considers the student protests to be a real political pressure by which someone is trying to seize power by force and not by elections. The president claims that he is being pressured to resign, get arrested and leave power to those who want to “return the country to the past”.
