Djokovic: From Serbian Hero to Controversy Under Vučić

In the past, Nole had issued distancing signs with the president, politically raised as Minister of Information of Slobodan Milosevic. He was critical, for example, with the agreement for the exploitation of lithium in the Jadar site, in western Serbia, which Vučić reached in 2021 with the mining giant Rio Tinto and that the local population and the environmental organizations soliviated.

But none had affected the legitimacy of Vučić.

The mass marches against the ruler Progressive Serbian Party (SNS) germinated in November last year in university classrooms. The detachment of the outer marquee of the Novi Sad train station triggered the anger of the students.

Fifteen people died on the spot. A 19 year old, Vukasin Crnceviche lost his life five months later because of the wounds. He is the number sixteen of the tragedy.

Judicial investigation was not long in emerging the negligence of public works. The project, valued at 1.3 billion euros, was financed through a loan agreement between the Serbian government, the Exim Bank of China and the Russian government under the framework of cooperation between China and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Before the ceiling of the station was falling apart on the first day of November, many Serbian citizens had denounced that the works reproduced point by point the mode of operation of the Vučić regime: corruption, secrecy and lack of accountability.

There are twelve people charged in the cause. In the list of investigated figure Goran Vesićformer Minister of Construction, Transportation and Infrastructure of Vučić. The then mayor of Novi Sad, Milan Djuricanother close ally of the president, also has a reserved seat on the bench of the accused.

Authorized voice

A month after the beginning of the protests, Djokovic closed ranks with young people – and the not so young – who ask for a change of course. “As someone who deems deeply in the power of young people and in their desire for a better future, I think it is important that their voices be heard,” he wrote on social networks.

The national hero promoted with his statements the student movement. A horizontal movement, without leaders, which rules out any association with traditional political parties and whose initial demands were clear: to make public all documents related to the renewal of the Novi Sad station and process all those involved in the attacks on students and teachers during the protests.

Instead of listening, Vučić applied the repressive manual.

The best Serbian athlete of all time – as the twenty -four Grand Slam titles that looks in his showcase – broke his silence on this matter shortly before the first big one of the season, the Open of Australia. A country that two years before had closed the door for not presenting the COVID-19 vaccination certificate.

Vučić then denounced “the mistreatment” that the athlete was suffering and showed him his support when he became Paria in the tennis circuit for his anti -vacussion posture.

Perhaps for that reason, Vučić did not understand his support for protests. He did not fit the reverse of his beloved Nole. At first, the president tried to remove iron from the matter. “[Djokovic] has done so much for Serbia that I will never say a bad word [de él]”He said on the TV report.” You can speak against everything I want, support my political rivals, but it would be dumb and stupid saying something bad about him. “

But soon he considered a “traitor.”

Now, the Serbian tabloids that his government controls, who had elevated Nole to the category of semi -hesons, accuse him of being “on the side of chaos”, “with the Hooligans.” Vučić propagandists have even insinuated that it consumes illegal substances to improve their performance on the track.

The discredit campaign failed to silence Djokovic. The tennis player does not bite his tongue. “There is a serious escalation, we are literally on the edge of a civil war. I hope the situation calms down a little, but there is no indication that this will happen,” he warned just a few weeks ago from the press room of the US Open.

“The general situation in the country is such that people already care very little,” he lamented. “Without wanting to enter political issues, because I have already spoken a lot, I hope that the spirits are calmed down.”

The Serbian tennis player also explained from New York the decision to change the headquarters of his tennis tournament, of ATP 250 category, which used to be held in Belgrade. It will be played next November in Athens.

“The only thing I can say is that we did not want to move the tournament, but unfortunately, things are,” Nole was justified, which praised Greece, his host country. “We are looking forward to going to Athens, where they have really received us very kindly.”

According to the local press, Djokovic has established his residence in the capital Helena. Live for rent in the luxurious neighborhood of Glyfada, to stone from the center. In summer, Nole met up to twice with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

The conservative leader made public the second meeting with the tennis player last August, on the island of Tenos. They visited the church of Santa María del Announcer, the Orthodox Sanctuary of Pilgrimage most important in Greece.

“Above all, [Djokovic] He has defended the interests of his people, “writes the columnist Aleksandar Miletic In the pages of the newspaper Policy. “In Roland Garros 2023, he wrote in the camera ‘Kosovo is the heart of Serbia’, risking to be expelled from the tournament. He supported the ‘defense of the sacred places’ in Montenegro, he opposed the exploitation of lithium in Serbia, defended the Russian and Belarus athletes when the whole world rejected them; and at the same time he offered financial aid and all kinds victims of war in Ukraine. “

Miletić remembers how “half of Serbia criticized him for saying, during the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which would support Croatia after the elimination of the Serbian team, but he – as always – said what he felt in the heart, which perceives the entire region as its own.”

“What Djokovic does has nothing to do with politics, which, as he said, he once is not interested in at all,” says the columnist.

Djokovic is not the only great Serbian athlete who has shown his support for students. The mythical basketball player Dejan Bodiroga He did the same, in the same way that the current captain of the basketball team, Bogdan Bogdanovic. Although other figures such as Nikola Jokic They keep keeping silent.

Satiety

The tragedy of Novi Sad catalyzed “the eruption of an ancient public resentment in the face of endemic crime,” writes the analyst Mike Smeltzer In Freedom House. The concentration of power in the hands of Vučić allowed “a widespread corruption, with lucrative public contracts awarded based on political ties rather than free competence and capacity,” he adds.

Throughout the last decade, Serbia has registered mass protests. Its citizens took to the streets to protest against the urban balls of the capital, in 2017; against aggressions to opposition leaders, in 2018; against the lithium exploitation project, in 2021; for the two shootings suffered in schools.

And yet no protest was as nourished as the latter.

The president attributes mass mobilizations to a campaign of foreign influence. Talk about a “color revolution.” It is the way to justify the police repression that applied from the first day on the protesters.

In the first months, he sacrificed in pursuit of his own survival to the mayor of Novi Sad and his prime minister, Milos Vucevicwhich announced its resignation in early January. But he failed to temper the students’ spirits.

The fuses did not serve. Therefore, Vučić decided to change strategy and redouble the offensive. He became criminalized to the protesters, to whom he closers from criminals. He even denounced on national television that students plan their murder.

Esta semana, sin ir más lejos, Vučić comparó su caso con el asesinato del activista ultraconservador Charlie Kirk en Utah. Una táctica habitual que antes había utilizado con el intento de magnicidio que sufrió Robert Fico, el primer ministro eslovaco.

El presidente serbio es hábil. A pesar del descontento casi generalizado, conserva el respaldo de la Unión Europea, Estados Unidos y Rusia. Un equilibrio imposible que mantiene gracias a su imagen de garante de la estabilidad en el siempre convulso país balcánico. Pero nada dura para siempre.