May 7, 2025.
Source: N1
Maja Stojanović, director of Civic Initiatives, supported the students’ call to hold extraordinary parliamentary elections and pointed out that the result of the election depends on the number of people and that there is now a large number of young people who could turn the result against the government.
Commenting on the students’ request to call for extraordinary parliamentary elections, Stojanović said in “Iza vesti” that this call represents the articulation of the huge dissatisfaction not only of students, but also of citizens, which was seen in the previous months.
Asked if it is logical to ask for early elections and ignore election conditions, the “Iza vesti” guest says that it is and that she does not believe that the government will give election conditions in order to lose the elections.
“Many more citizens need to go to the polls and we have to work on the conditions… I hope that young people don’t just call for elections to be called, but that they also go to the polls. We now have a huge number of young people who could overturn the elections,” Stojanović said.
When it comes to the election conditions themselves, she said that REultimate is an election condition, and that the students saw that.
“As citizens, the opposition, the media, we can never have insight into the entire voter list. They did something about it, but it is very difficult for anyone to say whether the voter list is in order. I am in favor of choosing those conditions that we can control, and REM can. And here it is important that this election condition is not fulfilled,” said Stojanović.
She added that this time, due to the publicity, there will be independent candidates for REM Council members in all nine areas.
The EU’s attitude towards Serbia has changed because the citizens have changed their attitude
The Director of Civic Initiatives assessed that the European Union’s narrative towards Serbia has completely changed. He says that harsher messages have started since January.
“Everything started with Laura Koveši and the initiation of the investigation, the visit of Marta Kos, what she said at the very session of the European Parliament. We have a very big turnaround in relation to the kind of rhetoric, and that way of pressuring the government to harmonize, above all with European values. I think that has changed a lot,” Stojanović said.
Asked if the President of Serbia, Aleksnadar Vučić, must meet the requirements of the European Union, Stojanović says that the message is that the country must meet those conditions.
“Whether this government will work in the interest of the state is another and internal question. The message of the EU is that it will no longer turn a blind eye to the authorities on the obligations of the state of Serbia,” the guest of “Iza vesti” pointed out.
Speaking about why it took so long for the EU to change its attitude towards Serbia, Stojanović says that what has changed is that they realized that the society in Serbia no longer wants to live like this.
“They looked to see if there were different voices, if there were dynamics in society that were different from what the party in power does, they looked to see if there was opposition, the opposition is not visible if it cannot collect 30 to 40 percent in the elections. The students brought what is clear, that the young generation and the majority of people do not want to live like this, they want the rule of law and legal security in the country, and that started from the slogan ‘corruption kills,'” Stojanović pointed out.
Watch Maja Stojanović’s entire guest appearance in the video attachment.