Serbia’s Vucic: SNS will overwhelmingly win in Belgrade and Serbia

Andrej Isaković/AFP

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic told Prva TV late on Friday that anything short of an absolute majority for his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the 2022 elections in Belgrade would be a failure, while across the country he expected a convincing victory, but did not say if he would run for the second term for sure.

„I’m at the end of my mandate,“ he said and added that SNS would decide about his candidacy for the next presidential elections in the spring of 2022.

Vucic said he caused „a hell“ ahead of the next Brdo-Brijuni summit of the Western Balkans leaders by adding an amendment to the paper sent to him after the others agreed.

„They sent me draft conclusions saying that we all should be against border changes. I added an amendment saying it’s all ok, but as long as it’s within the UN declarations,“ he said, adding no document could be adopted without Serbia’s consent.

Vucic declared he would rather lose his head than give up Serbia.

He blasted the West and opposition, saying they, without specifying who, „invested money in analysts, dozens, hundreds of millions Euro, billions. Those are people who changed Serbia’s borders in 1990-91. They killed our children, destroyed our bridges, villages, cities,“ Vucic said alluding to the NATO 1999 bombing of the then Yugoslavia over Belgrade policy in Kosovo.

„They said it was to prevent humanitarian catastrophe… It’s not easy to go over such untruths,“ he added.

Speaking about recent pressures, tycoons, as he described some opposition leaders, he said they „invested in one, two, three media, in analysts, over 1.2 billion Euro to politically destroy me.“

Speaking about the recently arrested criminal organisation, he alleged they had hideouts close to some foreign embassies in Belgrade, adding many more details were yet to be investigated.

Asked about Kosovo, Vucic said he would talk to Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary-General, about „one world power’s idea“ that the Alliance’s KFOR should withdraw from Kosovo.

„I want to prevent that; I want to make it public in advance,“ he said, adding that no one from the region should replace KFOR „but someone who is far from here.“