Clashes in Serbia have continued for a second day as opponents and supporters of the Serbian government faced off, each side staging its own demonstrations, following more than nine months of sustained protests against populist President Aleksandar Vucic. The president’s supporters and anti-government demonstrators launched flares and other objects at each other in the northern city of Novi Sad on Wednesday evening, requiring the intervention of riot police, according to local media.
Thousands gathered for protests in other parts of the country, mostly outside local headquarters of Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party. In Belgrade, riot police used tear gas to disperse anti-government demonstrators in one area. Elsewhere, riot police separated the opposing groups in the central town of Kraljevo, with protests also taking place in the southern city of Nis and in the central towns of Cacak and Kragujevac.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic called for the “return of law and order”, while Vucic labelled the anti-government demonstrators “thugs”, a familiar refrain from the government in characterising opponents. The clashes first began on Tuesday night in Vrbas, northwest of the capital Belgrade, where riot police separated the two groups outside the governing Serbian Progressive Party offices in the town.
Images from the scene showed government supporters throwing flares, rocks, and bottles at the protesters, who hurled back various objects. Police said that dozens of people were injured, including 16 police officers. Similar incidents were reported at protests in other parts of the country. Police said that several people were detained in Vrbas.
Police Commissioner Dragan Vasiljevic told state-run RTS television that the protesters “came to attack” the governing party’s supporters outside the party’s offices. However, protesters have said that government supporters attacked them first in Vrbas and also further south in Backa Palanka, and later in Novi Sad and the southern city of Nis.
In Belgrade, riot police pushed away protesters who gathered in a downtown area. Vucic said at a news conference on Wednesday with Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker that pro-democracy protests in Serbia have been “very violent and were violent last night”. Protests have, since November, drawn hundreds of thousands of people, rattling Vucic’s long-running presidency.
The student-led protests in Serbia first started in November after a train station canopy collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people, triggering furious accusations of corruption in state infrastructure projects. Serbia’s president, other government officials, and pro-government media have repeatedly described the protesters as “terrorists”, although protests since November have been largely peaceful.
Led by university students, the protesters are demanding that Vucic call an early parliamentary election, which he has refused to do. Serbia is formally seeking European Union membership, but Vucic has maintained strong ties with Russia and China, and has been accused of stifling democratic freedoms since coming to power 13 years ago.