Student protestors want to see Serbia 'become a different society', free of corruption

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00:00Protesters in Serbia are vowing to continue their campaign despite the resignation of

00:04the Prime Minister. Miloš Vučević is stepping down following weeks of mass demonstrations

00:10over the collapse of the roof of a train station in northern Serbia. In November,

00:1515 people were killed. The collapse has ignited long-standing anger across the country

00:20over corruption and the alleged lack of oversight on construction projects.

00:26For more, we are joined now from Belgrade by political analyst Helena Ivanov. Thanks so much

00:31for joining us, Helena. You're an Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. Thanks

00:37so much for your time on the programme this evening. You said a little earlier today that

00:41the resignation of the Serbian Prime Minister, it's essentially too little, too late, and you

00:47predict that this is not going to be enough to defuse tensions in Serbia. No, it's not going

00:52to be enough, and I think the events of tonight in Serbia go to prove that. There has been a massive

00:58protest in the city of Novi Sad, obviously caused by the entire situation in the country, but

01:03specifically triggered by the violence that was committed against a student girl last night who

01:08was in hospital, who was severely injured, whose jaw was broken by people who were sitting in the

01:12Serbian Progressive Party's headquarters in Novi Sad, came out and started beating her up.

01:18On top of that, we've seen protests in Belgrade tonight as well, but also across some other cities.

01:22I think that just events of this night, which follows the resignation, show that the Prime

01:28Minister's resignation is not enough, and that is very clear why. He's not the person that the

01:32student demands are targeting, and they've never actually requested his resignation in the four

01:38official demands they have right now. Exactly. So what exactly are those official demands then?

01:44At the moment, the students have four demands. The first one is that all and entire documentation

01:49pertaining to the reconstruction of the train station has to be made public. The second one is

01:54that all people who have been engaging in violence against students have to be prosecuted. The third

02:00one is that all the students who have been arrested in relation to the protests have to

02:04be released. And the fourth one is about the budgetary constraints and the budgetary decisions

02:09regarding to the universities. Of course, the first one is the most problematic one. The

02:13government initially said that the canopy was not reconstructed, then sort of admitted that it was

02:18reconstructed, that certain documentation was published. They've claimed that's it, that's all

02:23documentation. But then the university came back and said, well, actually, no, there are a lot of

02:28different documents that are missing. Now the government claims that they have actually published

02:32everything again. At one point, the president of the National Assembly said that basically this

02:36demand is impossible to fulfill because someone can always claim that one paper is missing.

02:40So it's the first one, really, that seems to be very difficult for the government to fulfill.

02:45And truth be told, I'm not even sure that at this point people believe that they will ever

02:50fulfill the first demand. Yeah, because this incident, the tragic incident involving the

02:55roof of that train station that collapsed, it seems to have served really as a lightning rod

03:00for wider concerns about corruption, about bad governance in Serbia. So talk to us a little bit

03:06more about that and what impact this might have for the Serbian president.

03:10Correct. I think, you know, this specific tragedy has really hit close to home. You know,

03:15you speak to people here in Serbia and they will basically tell you, I find myself in a position

03:20where I'm scared to walk out and walk around the street because a canopy might fall on my head.

03:24So in a sense, anybody could have been below that canopy. And that's why I think this has

03:28touched upon the lives of so many people. I think secondly, as you correctly point out,

03:33this specific tragedy sort of really puts at the forefront a lot of different issues that

03:38many previous rounds of protests have discussed. You know, the state capture,

03:42the corruption, the freedom of press, because once the protests have started,

03:46the government associated media outlets, but also the national broadcaster have failed

03:50to adequately report on what is going on at the protests. And then, of course,

03:53as violence erupted on the protests, specifically as people started running over the students with

03:58their cars or like last night, beating them up with baseball bats, that has also shown that,

04:03there are substantial problems in this country. And I think the students are really trying to make

04:10the situation better. They have four very clear demands. They're basically, all of their demands

04:14are targeting the general prosecutor. And as you point out, I think people who are supporting these

04:19protests are both supporting these demands, but they also want to see Serbia become a different

04:24society. They want Serbia that isn't as corrupt as they currently perceive it to be.

04:30Okay, we'll have to leave it there for now, Helena, but we do really appreciate your time

04:33on the programme. Thanks for being with us here at France 24. That is Helena Ivanov,

04:38she's an Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, joining us tonight from Belgrade.

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