Serbia’s Democracy Movement in the Face of the Authoritarian Surge

On May 3rd 2023, the citizens of Serbia awoke with a terrible news of the mass shooting in an Elementary School in the centre of Belgrade. A day after, following the catastrophically inadequate reaction of the Serbian authorities, in a classic example of a contagion of violence, another mass shooting took place in a municipality south of Belgrade. In reaction to these two tragic events, citizens of Serbia engaged in massive months long protests blaming the regime of the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and the television stations and tabloids affiliated with the regime for creating the conditions for two tragedies to happen and for a gross mismanagement of the situation. The citizens demonstrations, which were later coordinated and organised mainly by pro-European parties from the coalition Serbia Against Violence, put out a list of demands directed at resignations of the institutional representatives responsible for the occurred, but more importantly freeing the media in the country captured by the ruling party and doing the necessary to eliminate the culture of violence from the public sphere.

In an unprecedent move, unseen ever since 5 October 2000 and the democratic revolution that overthrew Milošević’s dictatorship from power, major Serbian independent NGOs supported the citizens’ demonstrations and their demands. Ever since the return of democracy to Serbia in 2000 it was considered somewhat of a taboo for civil society organisations to get involved in similar political demands or action. Civil society was to act independently from politics and through cooperation and advocacy with the government and institutions work for democratisation, EU integration and social change. Consequently, the entire approach of the international donor community was built on the premise of cooperation between CSOs and the state.

Such an approach was fruitful until 2012, when the political parties that ruled Serbia through the wars of the 1990s returned to power resulting in international isolation. Until then, CSOs maintained their distance from any type of political action, criticised the government when necessary, but worked in partnership with the state in the country’s EU accession process and overall democratisation effort. Ever since the coming to power of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and their coalition partners this became increasingly difficult.

Democracy movement in the face of increased authoritarianism

The gradual spiralling down of the country towards authoritarianism started in 2017 with the presidential elections that saw the election of Aleksandar Vučić as president of the Republic. Up until 2018, Serbia was still ranked as “free”, according to the Freedom House Freedom in the World Report. From 2019 until today Serbia’s ranking passed to “partially free” steadily worsening each year.

The situation on the ground when it comes to CSOs liberty to act reflected Serbia’s international democracy rankings. Not only that CSOs weren’t able to affect change in their dealings with the increasingly captured state institutions, but they themselves became a target of state sponsored attacks.

In 2020, Serbian authorities abused the oversight powers, given to them to target the financing of terrorism, to obtain banking information and information on financial transactions of more than 50 NGOs, media associations and other non-profit organizations whose activities stand out for their work on human rights, investigation of war crimes, monitoring of the government’s work, and other forms of investigative journalism. The scandal, dubbed “the Affair List”, demonstrated the misuse of the Serbian Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism with the aim of limiting the freedoms of expression and association of people belonging to these groups, and their right to take part in the conduct of public affairs.

During the protests organised in the aftermath of the mass shootings in May 2023, in two separate instances on  May 3rd and  May 12th, tabloids affiliated with the Serbian regime announced two separate articles in New York Times and the Guardian, that included statements of investigative journalists from the KRIK portal and experts from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, before they were even published. Regular work of independent journalists and CSOs was presented as a conspiration against the state. These two instances confirmed the doubts that state authorities, or other regime-affiliated actors, illegally intercept journalists and CSOs and share this information with government affiliated tabloids.

In the run up to the  December 17th elections, the Guardian, Washington Post and other international media, broke a story proving Serbian CSOs to be victims of state sponsored attacks by means of military grade spyware.[1]

Vučić’s pro-Western turn: Waiting for Godot

Regardless of direct attacks against civil society excluding any hope of meaningful cooperation with state institutions, a number of international partners and donors continue to operate in the pre-authoritarian mode expecting CSOs to maintain a pro-active attitude towards Serbia’s civil society. Why didn’t Serbia’s Western partners and the donor community adapt to the new situation?

The reasons for this are complex, but can be boiled down to two main reasons: the need to maintain a working relationship with the elected officials of Serbia (i.e. president Vučić), and a hope that they will lead Serbia towards EU membership and a wider integration with the West.

Whereas the first is understandable resembling EU’s frustrating management of the relationship with Viktor Orban’s Hungary, the second is entirely unrealistic.

Ever since 2012 and the gradual tightening of control of medias in the country, the ruling regime in Serbia has been offering to the population a constant daily drip of anti-Western propaganda. President Vučić often likes to lament against the supposed leap of the Serbian electorate to the right and that he is forced to take this into account when making policy decisions in the normalisation talks with Kosovo or when it comes to refusing to align with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and introduce sanctions to Russia. Yet, the country’s leap to the right is a bind of Vučić’s own making.

Despite expectations that the Serbian regime will move the country towards the West, reach a normalisation agreement with Kosovo, introduce sanctions to Russia, and end the anti-Western propaganda in the government affiliated media, there is no sign of this happening.

In December 2021, the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group published a report, basing itself on the findings of an opinion poll, showing the voters of president Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party and his coalition partners to be the most pro-Russian in comparison to voters of all other parties. The weaker the Vučić regime is, the more it would have to rely on his anti-Western core supporters, and less likely it will be to make a decisive pro-Western turn.

Instead of counting on Serbia’s regime good will to lead Serbia towards EU membership, full alignment with the West, and an end to the anti-Western propaganda and authoritarian practices, the EU and Serbia’s other Western partners should more openly support and forge relationships with the country’s pro-democracy movements.