Brnabic: Blockaders' demands were just screen, it was all about politics

BELGRADE - Commenting on the student protesters' call for early elections, Serbian Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said on Tuesday the initial demands of the blockaders had been just a screen and that "it was all about politics from the very start."

"The blockaders have no idea what their demands are and in whose competence those demands are under the Constitution and the laws, otherwise they would not be able to say the nonsense that they want elections so that their demands can be met," Brnabic wrote in a post on X.

She noted that the demands had to do with the prosecutor's offices and the judiciary rather than with executive and legislative authorities, and that neither the prosecutor's offices nor the judiciary were replaced in parliamentary elections.

"Secondly, their most recent demand was the election of the members of the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM). That is in the competence of the parliament. If you are now calling for an urgent and unconditional dissolution of the parliament, then why were you blocking the RTS for 15 days, harassing and targeting the people and subjecting them to violence in every way? Now the REM council is evidently not so important anymore? You tortured people for fun..." Brnabic added.

"It was all about politics from the very start. It is a disgrace that, even today, when all that is obvious, they are deceiving the people with the narrative about meeting their demands, which they change and supplement every day and which have now begun to conflict each other (e.g. elect the REM Council but immediately dissolve the parliament at the same time?!?)," Brnabic noted.

Student protesters who are blocking higher education institutions in Serbia called on Monday evening for a dissolution of the national parliament and for early parliamentary elections, invoking Article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia.