Panovic: Putin’s cult existed even before the SNS came to power

Demostat programme director Zoran Panovic said on the Beyond News show that “the million-dollar issue on which side of the wall we are on”, referring to the president’s words that “Putin has erected a wall”. “If you look at certain moves Vucic has made symbolically, you see that he is holding a strong connection with the West. What is the problem here is that Serbia’s public opinion is predominantly with the Russians and with Putin. The cult of Putin existed before 2012 and the SNS came to power, but Vucic built his cult in parallel with the help of Putin. ‘Little Putin’ implies a puppet position he wouldn’t like very much,” he says.

Speaking about the president’s announcement of the formation of the state-building movement, he said that this would first be related to “the famous potential withdrawal of Vucic from the position of President of the SNS”.

“Let us first look at this aspect, because if a Serbian or State-Building Block is created, then we doubt that they will have maybe Vucic as the president of that bloc or a new party, so Vucic will remain only the president of Serbia. But I personally think that article of the Constitution is wrong, “ he said.

There is a pessimistic and optimistic scenario, he said.

“Pessimistic if Vucic is going to create a kind of United Russia in the Serbian way, that whoever stays on the side has nothing to look for, and optimistic that Vucic is trying to find some kind of social consensus now, because obviously this ‘catch all’ he has cannot achieve that,” Panovic said.

The core question, he says, is whether a new party, a new coalition is being formed or something that is not a party is being made.

“Vucic learned something from the opposition, when they can’t make a party, they make a movement. Movement is the most widely understood thing that can mean anything. If in terms of political structure it is not a party, or a coalition of parties, then it is an alarm signal for those who remain outside the movement,“ he says.

It is obvious, he adds, that Vucic “has any danger coming from the right”.

“There is obviously no liberal left from the Civic left,” Panovic said.

He says the movement is “primarily for Vucic”.

“His strength, the strength of the SNS is unquestionable, but obviously it is not enough. This format has obviously been used up in some way, I think that from the point of view of some political logic it was better that the SNS profiled itself as a party in time, but obviously that ‘catch all’ has to expand,“ says Panovic.

The president said that Putin built the wall, and Panovic said that the million dollar question is which side of the wall we are on.

“If you look at certain moves that Vucic made symbolically, you can see that he is holding a strong connection with the West. The problem here is that the public opinion of Serbia is mostly with the Russians and with Putin. Putin’s cult existed before 2012. years and the coming of the SNS to power, but Vucic built his cult in parallel with the help of Putin’s.

“Little Putin implies a puppet position that he would not like very much,“ he said.

He thinks that Vucic “has done a lot in the rehabilitation of characters and ideologies from the nineties”.

“Even when he looks like Milosevic, make sure he doesn’t repeat Milosevic’s mistakes,” he says.

The consensus says that it should be asked to resemble the situation in Serbia at the time of the Dayton Agreement.

“When the majority of the opposition supported the Dayton Agreement and the signing of Milosevic. But beware, Milošević still had to clean up a nationalist faction, I think Vucic will not have these problems, everyone in the SNS will support Vucic in any direction, from that side I think that the party is quite homogeneous, I do not see the possibility of some fractional conflict, we will just see what the modality of the SNS position is, whether it will be some kind of integration, unification,“ he says.

Panovic believes that if there is a winner in this opposition situation now, other than the right wing, the DS may be a winner in some way.

“The DS was only the fourth party in SzS, the first was Djilas, then Narodna, then Dveri, and now as Jeremic and Dveri went even further to the right, as the SPP went from a party by itself, to a party for itself, suddenly the DS showed that it was there, I think they could profit,” he said.

According to Panovic, “it would be best if he had a Serbian List in Belgrade as well.”

Referring once again to the announcements of the formation of the movement, he said that we will see “whether this movement will have a president or whether it will be a presidential movement.”

“I would most like it to look like a political party, rather than to make some new alliances, I think that this is essentially a matter of a rebranding process for the SNS, after 10 years of rule, that brand should be refreshed a bit, obviously they see it too,” says Panovic. /N1/