The last thing Borko Stefanovic remembered was three men standing in the shadows.
“They stepped out and knocked me in the head with knuckle dusters,” said Stefanovic, a Serbian opposition politician. His head was split open, drenching his shirt in blood. He lost consciousness.
In Serbia, a country with a long history of political violence, Stefanovic immediately suspected that the beating in late November was intended to send a message: Stop talking about the nexus between criminal networks and political leaders.
If so, it didn’t work.
Protesters seized on the attack, and they have taken to the streets every week since the beginning of December in ever-growing numbers — now by the tens of thousands — to challenge President Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party.
“No more bloody shirts,” is their rallying cry.
The widening protests, which have now spread to cities beyond Belgrade, the capital, are shaping up to be a pivotal moment for the Vucic government, as Serbia is being tugged between its traditional allegiance to Russia and its desire to join the European Union.
The demonstrations have cast a harsh light on Vucic, and on whether he is prepared to embrace Western democratic principles that are already being tested by the younger members of the European Union, like Hungary and Poland. His opponents say he is following the model of light authoritarianism dressed up with the trapping of democracy that has become common in Turkey and Russia, among other countries.
Vucic started his career as an ultranationalist during the bloody wars that convulsed the Balkans in the 1990s. He served as information minister under President Slobodan Milosevic until the leader was ousted in 2000.
In the years since the fighting ended, Vucic has sought to remake his image, helping form a moderate party in 2008. He won a commanding victory in the 2017 president election, and has built up his support largely on the promise of overhauling the state-driven economy and putting Serbia on a path to joining the European Union.
Today, the Serbian Progressive Party controls all but three municipalities in the country. Vucic has used that dominance, his critics say, to take over the levers of the state — the news media, law enforcement and the courts — and to turn them against his opponents.
Among those raising concerns is Nebojsa Zelenovic, mayor of Sabac, one of the three places not controlled by the governing party. In November, he went to Strasbourg, France, to testify before the Council of Europe about what he called a raft of abuses.
“Police investigators, tax officers, pro-government tabloids are prosecuting only the ones considered not to be loyal to the central government, irrespective of the law and the will of the citizens who voted for us locally,” he charged.
After giving that speech, Zelenovic said, he was accused of stealing millions of dollars in public money. He was acquitted, but the judge who handled the case then found herself under attack.
“Beneath that European surface, Vucic is a dictator,” Zelenovic said in an interview.
Vucic sat down for an interview with The New York Times at the presidential palace the night after hosting a lavish state reception for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, with 100,000 people bused into Belgrade to welcome him.
Leaders of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania pledged support for Serbia's bid to join the European Union. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) Source: AAP Image/AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic
He brushed off the criticisms directed at him. “I think that we belong to a very democratic society,” he said with his characteristic calm.
He and his supporters say the first demonstrations had been hijacked by political rivals and outside forces that do not want Serbia to move closer to the West.
But the recent protests appear to have started organically and have only grown. They are now animated by a wide range of complaints, particularly among young people demanding less government control over the media, more safeguards to ensure elections are free from intimidation, greater economic opportunity and less corruption.
Jelena Anasonovic, 24, is too young to remember the war. She is not a politician and doesn’t have a plan for dealing with Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in the 1990s. All she knows is that she is fed up.
“Our parents and grandparents tell us, ‘Do not get involved,'” she said. “My mom said they will destroy your life and your future,” she added, referring to the governing party.
But after Stefanovic was attacked, she joined a group of students and, in early December, helped organise the first weekly march. She thought 7,000 people would turn out; twice as many as that did.
Vucic, speaking to supporters after the first protest, was dismissive. “Even if there were 5 million people in the street,” he said, he would not bow to their demands.
His comment was widely shared on social media, and protesters began wearing buttons and carrying signs reading “One in 5 million.” By January, tens of thousands were taking part in demonstrations.
Vucic told The Times that he did not regret the comment, but said it had been taken out of context. “I was saying that I would always listen to the people, but I would never listen to those politicians who ruined the country,” he said.
Stefanovic says he was most likely attacked because he had spoken publicly about possible connections between party bosses and criminal networks, and what he sees as the corrupt use of state money and the awarding of state contracts.
Vucic said he could rebut each criticism and pointed to his government’s handling of Stefanovic’s beating. “We immediately arrested all three guys who attacked him,” he said. “I condemned, in a most serious and most responsible way, those guys.”
The president blames Kosovo, and his bold — some say dangerous — plan for a land swap to resolve the dispute with the mostly Muslim and ethnic Albanian region, for the growing street protests.
He noted that he had been accused of betraying the homeland, of “ruining our territorial integrity.”
Still, Vucic has vowed to press ahead with negotiations on Kosovo. “Serbs will say they are fed up with humiliation,” he said. “If we are going to reach a compromising solution, it will mean both Albanians and Serbs will need to be equally dissatisfied.”
But for young protesters like Anasonovic, the sense of humiliation comes not from Kosovo, but from daily life.
“We are confronted on a daily basis with so many lies and threats,” she said. For speaking out, she said, she has been branded a traitor. “In the 21st century, we cannot stand one more day living like this.”
