Vučić in a few words: “Arrogance at home, condescension abroad”

An interview conducted by the renowned Michael Martens, a journalist for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, with Aleksandar Vučić at the request of the Serbian president and following Martens’ article criticizing his regime, revealed the hypocrisy, duplicity, and manipulation of the head of state, whom many, not only in Serbia but around the world, recognize as an autocratic ruler, even a dictator.

Danas’ interlocutors, who analyzed this interview, a rare opportunity to see how Aleksandar Vučić behaves and how he generally responds to questions from a journalist who is not part of his media machine, also agree that Vučić is patronising towards the international public, that he openly lies and distorts his own words intended for the domestic public, and that he does all this very calculatingly.

Michael Martens, for example, published a critical article about Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić entitled “False Friends,” in which he discusses the relationship between the authorities in Serbia and Russia, as well as the cooperation between the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation and the Serbian Progressive Party. He tried to draw attention to the duplicity of Vučić’s foreign policy and his departure from the intention to cooperate with European partners.

Among other things, he stated that Vučić’s confidant Aleksandar Vulin is closer to Beijing and Moscow than to Brussels, which irritated Vučić, who practically “dismissed” Vulin himself in the aforementioned interview with Martens, saying: “Come on! Look at what you’re doing! Vulin is not even a member of my party. He is no longer a member of the government.” Martens reminded Vučić that he had appointed him as his minister for Kosovo, minister of the interior, coordinator of the security services, deputy prime minister, and minister of defense, and asked, “And he’s not your close associate?” “He is no longer a minister,” Vučić replied. “Vučić is good for nothing.” The entire interview looks like a poorly written scene from a late 1970s legal drama series. “Vulin was a minister when he was a minister” … “He is no longer a minister” … Wait, he was a minister, and this is manipulation, because we have had the same government with him at the helm for 13 years,” Jovana Gligorijević, a journalist for the newspaper Vreme, tells Danas.

What is particularly surprising about Martens’ interview with Vučić, besides the fact that he “renounced Vulin,” is that Vučić repeatedly denied that he had claimed that a color revolution financed from abroad was taking place in Serbia, and shifted the entire blame onto non-governmental organizations that are allegedly involved in this. Martens demanded evidence, but Vučić distorted his statements.

Vučić says he never said that the color revolution was financed from abroad, emphasizes Danas correspondent Jovana Gligorijević.

He first said this in an interview on Informer, when Jovana Joksimović and Branko Babić were there. Jovana asked him which foreign services he was referring to, and he said, “We’ll hear about it.” In addition, he has now “twisted the cat’s whiskers,” so it seems we are arguing: it was not financed from abroad, but our non-governmental organizations receive foreign money and use it to buy three meals a day for students in the blockade. We all know that this is not how it works, neither with feeding students nor with spending funds on projects. But we have forgotten about the investigation in February this year and the raid by armed police on four civil society organizations, where, as far as we know, they found nothing. The raids were carried out on the orders of prosecutor Nenad Stefanović, says Jovana Gligorijević.

What Vučić is saying now is a continuation of this confabulation, she adds.

If he were a good storyteller, he would connect these elements, but he is not a good storyteller, he is not good at anything. In this interview, he also says that he is a political veteran, which is true, but a bad veteran, he concludes.

“Martens had to upset Vučić”

According to Žarko Korać, a retired professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, FAZ is probably the most influential German daily newspaper, and journalist Michael Martens, who knows the region very well and has written, as Danas’ interlocutor points out, a very good book about Ivo Andrić.

With his critical article about Vučić, he must have upset him. Especially since he had previously written positively about Vučić in his articles, which is why Vučić quoted him at government meetings. Now the situation has reversed, with FAZ, as an influential newspaper, hinting at a change in German policy. And Vučić, in this interview, which he himself requested, strikes a very patronizing tone, unlike his usual threats to journalists in Serbia, Žarko Korać describes his impression.

He denies obvious facts and avoids answering direct questions, he says.

For Serbian citizens, it may be important how he appears when talking to those in power, in this case the powerful media. Arrogance at home, condescension abroad, concludes Žarko Korać.

“Even the best find it difficult to talk to the doctor of the worst demagoguery”

Janko Baljak, director and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, tells Danas that even the best journalists and experts on the Balkans (and Martens emphasizes that he is one) find it difficult to talk to the doctor of the worst demagoguery, such as Vučić.

Vučić has a clean and moderately deceitful face when talking to foreign journalists, and an arrogant, monstrously deceitful face when addressing the domestic public. Martens at least manages to ask uncomfortable questions to the end and use them to expose liars and manipulators. A Serbian journalist who thinks critically would be subjected to a barrage of aggressive insults, followed by shouting, and would not be able to finish any of the questions Martens asked, says a source for Danas.

When we talk about Vučić practically denying his own claims in this interview that the West is financing protests against his regime, Janko Baljak says that if he tells the Americans that the Russians are financing the protests and curses the West here, it is clear that he thinks he can lie to the whole world.

He simply crossed the line and presented lies as Serbia’s policy of non-alignment. That is why no one believes him, and why interviews such as this one, conducted at his personal request, carry no weight, concludes Janko Baljak./Danas/