FOUR months ago, one of the main topics in Serbia was a documentary called "Vladalac" (The Ruler) written by Slavisa Lekic, directed by Jovana S. Polic, and edited by Sanja Loncar, which was aired by N1. The two-part documentary lasts three hours and features the current president of Serbia and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Aleksandar Vucic.
The miseries of the regime with the documentary film "The Ruler"
"The Ruler" is "a political biography" of Vucic, a controversial film in which the chosen interlocutors, mostly Vucic's opponents and fierce critics, talked badly of the president, and even described him as a psychopath. But the three hours long documentary "The Ruler" is a detailed account of the incredible political career and biography of Aleksandar Vucic, which he often embellished when he needed.
That's why Vucic's regime overreacted to this documentary, because Lekic uncovered many Vucic's lies, from the little ones about him working in a tool store in the UK, and him being the best student at the Faculty of Law, to the bigger lies about Vucic fighting for the welfare of Serbia and against corruption, while the evil forces are trying to overturn him. "The Ruler" reminded us that Vucic's political activity is based on lies, and that's what hurts him the most - when his lies are being exposed and when he cannot impose his narrative as reality.
We know everything about Vucic; he isn't a mystery
A quickly improvised film "Progon" (The Persecution) was aired on Pink television as a response to the film "The Ruler." In "The Persecution," Vucic's supporters attack the authors and the N1 and call them "a tycoon television" while he repeats the tabloid lies. Vucic himself has commented on the film several times, practically declaring it as an assassination attempt on him, and the funnest part is when Vucic lied that "The Ruler is as much as four hours long. He couldn't help himself not to lie, not to add an additional hour.
The only thing that this counter-attack did was to spark the interest of the public to watch "The Ruler," which, in the meantime, has been viewed more than a million times (the first part) on Youtube, and more than 500,000 times (the second part).
The political biography of Aleksandar Vucic is actually an open book; there are no many secrets in there because Vucic himself has fudged the story. The real truth uncovers that his entire political career was a path of terror, insatiable ambitions, and even worse unscrupulousness, narcissism, and ultranationalism.
He joined Seselj's party when we was studying law
Aleksandar Vucic was born in 1970 in Belgrade, in a middle-class family. After finishing Zemun grammar school, he joined Delije, the fanatic and criminal supporters of the football club Crvena Zvezda. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1994, but a year earlier, he made the key decision of his life and political career - he joined the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) led by Vojislav Seselj.
What did the young law student draw to Seselj? They were both the Greater Serbia nationalists, and one shouldn't ignore the fact that SRS wasn't full of young, highly educated people. Vucic had become a general secretary in a year after he joined the party, and he held the third-highest position in the hierarchy of the party, behind Seselj and Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Nikolic, until 2008 when SRS fell apart.
At the beginning of his career, Vucic was shortly a reporter on RTV Pale, Radovan Karadzic's television, which, for example, denied the occupation of Sarajevo and spread the most horrifying anti-Muslim propaganda. So Vucic has always shown interest in the media, the interest which was about to be fully realized in its most malicious form when he becomes the absolute "ruler" of Serbia.
Vucic was learning about politics from Seselj
But first, Vucic had to do an apprenticeship with Seselj. Many know about the photo depicting young Vucic in the background carrying a crate of beer while Seselj holds a speech in some SRS meeting, but in all likelihood, it's false. Vucic wasn't carrying beers around, he was Seselj's right-hand man, and young Vucic was learning from the future convicted war criminal and the worst warmonger of this area how to deal with the political opponents, how to argue with reporters, how to stage a scene in front of the cameras, etc. It's obvious even today that Vucic and Seselj were cut from the same cloth.
Three things won't be forgotten from that period of Vucic's career. The first one is his crazy Greater Serbian speech in Glina in 1995, in which he, a few months before Operation Storm, still encouraged aggression with the Virovitica - Karlovac - Karlobag border, for which he never apologized. The second is an even more horrifying statement in the Serbian Parliament where he called for the killing of a hundred Muslims for every Serbian killed." The third is his performance as an information minister in the coalition government of Milosevic's socialists and Seselj's radicals when he was 28.
An information minister from 1998 until 2000
Vucic spent his relatively short mandate in attacking the independent journalists and planning how to impose the law about media censorship, and it all culminated with killing the well-known reporters, for example, Slavko Ćuruvija. Vucic definitely participated in creating the atmosphere of encouraging aggression towards journalists who were critical towards Milosevic's regime. Still, people believe that Milosevic and his wife Mira Markovic orchestrated the killings. When Seselj went to The Hague, Nikolic took over the party, and Vucic became his right hand, but there was no path that would bring the radicals to rulership.
How did Vucic reveal that he advocates for Serbia to join the EU
The media was wondering for days if Vucic would leave SNS, but Vucic was waiting for Seselj to name him his successor and the new leader of the radicals. When that didn't happen, Vucic suddenly left the party, joined Nikolic, and together they started their political renaissance. SNS quickly became the main opposition to the Democratic Party and president Boris Tadić. They began to be more acceptable to western democracy by supporting Serbia to join the EU. For the first time in his life, Vucic is becoming accepted in the fine saloons of the political power, among those he still hated, but without whom he cannot even hope to rule one day.
The Progressive Party started to be more or less civilized compared to the worst Seselj's behavior and started to present itself as an acceptable alternative to the incompetent and corrupted Tadic's rulership. But they had to go great lengths to win in elections. For example, Vucic ran for the mayor of Belgrade and lost.
Tomislav Nikolic's victory was a game-changer in Vucic's career
They pulled off the victory on account of Tadic's thoughtlessness.
Serbian President held the parliamentary and presidential elections at the same time in 2012, hoping that his popularity and winning the presidential elections will help the Democratic Party's result in the parliamentary elections. Still, at the end, both Tadic and the Democratic Party lost.
Tomislav Nikolic was elected as Serbian President, an eternal loser in the second round until then, who resigned as the SNS president because he wanted to be the president of all citizens. He gave the party over to Vucic, who became the vice president of the government and Defence Minister while Ivica Dacic was the president of the government.
Prosecution of the tycoon Miskovic
The new vice president of the government soon overshadowed the prime minister. Vucic started a big media anti-corruption campaign with a goal to arrest the tycoon Miroslav Miskovic. Vucic praised that he personally monitors the investigations, although it was beyond his official power. Eventually, nothing happened with the prosecution of Miskovic, but Vucic positioned well for a snap parliamentary election in 2014. As the leader of SNS for the first time, he got as much as 48 percent of votes.
Vucic starts his run toward Serbia's most prestigious political function, one of the president of Serbia. His former mentor Tomislav Nikolic stood in his way, but Vucic's power had increased so much until 2017 - he won in snap elections 2016 - that he gave Nikolin an offer he couldn't refuse. Vucic was elected for a parade function in relations with Russia, and Vucic ran in front of SNS and won in the first round with 56 percent of votes.
Vucic has been the absolute ruler of Serbia since 2017
He controls everything; he is asked about everything. All five televisions broadcast exclusively the pro-regime propaganda and glorification of Vucic, who is their frequent guest. They even stopped asking questions, letting him recite his crazy monologues for an hour or two.
What is the current balance sheet of Vucic's rulership in Serbia?
In terms of foreign policy, Vucic improved the position of Serbia to a certain extent. Serbia now tries to maintain good relations with powerful states, from the USA, Europe, Russia to China. Vucic has brought some foreign investors and increased GDP, but he didn't manage to stop the emigration. He negotiated with the leaders of Kosovo, but with no particular agreement. Still, Serbia remained the factor of instability in the region in which the state of democratic freedom and human rights have systematically worsened since Vucic is in charge. The EU mostly ignores it because Vucic behavior towards the more powerful ones is prone to compromise, as long as he takes his frustration out on his citizens.
The terror of Vucic's propaganda
Vucic's constant tirades have become a part of everyday life in Serbia. With his omnipresence, propaganda, and blatant lies, the president literally drives the Serbian citizens crazy, who are grouped into three key categories: those who believe the propaganda, or at least they abide by it; the ones who don't believe the propaganda, but they are powerless to do anything about it, and those who have had enough of everything and want to leave the country.
SNS rules with the help of political patronage and corruption
But how does Vucic manage to remain rulership in such a convincing way? Is the constant propaganda enough to ensure the support of more than two million voters, as in the recent parliamentary elections where the opposition groups declared a boycott of the elections.
SNS has 700,000 members, which is around 10 percent of the population. Those members have families, and we can easily come to the number of two million voters. Vucic and his party took over all Serbian institutions, all levels of government, and employment in the public sector, and sometimes in the private sector, depends on SNS membership card and the electoral support of Vucic.
The nazi model of rulership
It's the nazi model of rulership to some extent; there is a charismatic leader on top who uses the party structures, propaganda, street thugs, and ready-made masses for implementing his policies.
Not even many corruption affairs uncovered by rare independent media cannot harm Vucic. Those affairs are soon forgotten before the newest propaganda. The most popular hit is that someone is trying to assassinate Vucic or that someone wants to take him to war - that becomes breaking news in tabloids such as the Informer before being aired on the Pink and the Happy TV.
Vucic is losing control over himself
Each affair is "an attack on Vucic and Serbia," regardless of whether it's about the death of workers who are building the controversial project "Beograd na vodi" (Belgrade Waterfront), or that the father of the interior minister was in the gun-running business of the state company and therefore, made nice money.
In such Serbia, Vucic is now at the verge of power, convincingly elected president whose party got a two-thirds majority in the parliament. On the other hand, it's becoming apparent that Vucic is losing control over himself, that he doesn't want to pretend anymore to be a calm politician oriented towards Europe, and that he is entering the phase of Seselj's insanity, which is partially a reason for the rebellion on the streets of Belgrade.
Belgrade protests have shown that Aleksandar Vucic indeed holds power in Serbia, and he will continue to hold it by any means necessary. However, he still didn't fully conquer entire Serbia.