The Serbia that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni would have encountered this coming Friday at the postponed intergovernmental summit in Belgrade is a fragmented country, much like the remains of the collapsed canopy at the Novi Sad railway station. That collapse on November 1st claimed 15 lives and triggered a new wave of protests against the way power is exercised in the country. 
This is a country where under scrutiny is no longer any particular party or politician, but the institutions themselves. The judiciary, first and foremost, is seen as evasive and heavily influenced by the state leadership. The media are accused of being a megaphone for those in power, promoting trivial figures and degrading behaviors. Ministries are perceived as the primary channels for corruption through opaque hiring and spending procedures. Even the electoral processes are questioned, deemed flawed from the outset due to media control and campaigns aimed at delegitimising any political alternative. Western institutions and states are not spared criticism either, accused of appeasing the current system of power out of convenience and opportunism, abandoning the promotion of the rule of law in a country that has been an EU candidate for over a decade—yet membership now feels further away than ever.
The government and the protesters fail to understand each other because neither side is willing to engage on the other’s terms. While Speaker of Parliament Ana Brnabić calls for a new vote of confidence in the Vučević government and the President of the Republic demands a referendum on his leadership, the protest organisers point to the massive and consistent public participation in demonstrations – not only in the capital but also in dozens of cities and towns across Serbia. Meanwhile, the ruling party has only managed to fill a single square in Jagodina.
On one side is a political elite with a crushing parliamentary majority secured just over a year ago in elections with a voter turnout of less than 60%, heavily contested by the opposition over vote counting and polling procedures. On the other side is a growing segment of the population—students, the majority of teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, IT professionals, and farmers—voicing their frustration over economic growth driven by real estate and consumption fuelling the inflation, which has disproportionately hurt low and fixed-income earners. One side claims dominance in political and institutional terms, while the other claims legitimacy through public support and consensus.
In this context, the gradual release of all documents related to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad station canopy, under pressure from the protests, or even the acceptance of all student demands, including increased funding for public education, will not resolve the impasse. The divide is no longer political – it has become social. One part of the country refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the other, and vice versa.
The crisis of the majority principle
To be frank: the more polarised a society is, the less likely an electoral victory will be accepted by the entire society. Over the past decade, Serbia has become deeply polarised: between SNS supporters and its opponents, between those who have seen their economic situation improve and those who have found the cost of living unbearable, between those who have resigned themselves to certain policies and decisions and those who have taken to the streets in protest.
This happens because the majority principle is based on a simple concept: the orientation of the majority in an assembly must be accepted by all, but only under one condition—that the assembly is, if not entirely inclusive (as in a direct democracy), at least properly representative of all those affected by the majority’s decisions. Therefore, a majority (which in reality is an organised minority) that hides behind numbers and does not socially legitimise itself with authority, competence, and integrity is worse than inadequate—it is politically inconsistent. And what do numbers, votes of confidence, and referendums become in such cases?
“Numbers, even in this case, are merely an instrumental value, […] they measure a ratio and nothing more. And what do they measure? They measure the effectiveness, the capacity for expansion, and the persuasiveness of the opinions of the few—of the active minorities, the elites, the vanguards, etc.—or rather their rationality, historicity, or practical functionality,” wrote Antonio Gramsci in 1936. “The counting of votes is “the final manifestation of a long process in which the greatest influence belongs to those who ‘dedicate their best efforts to the State and the Nation’ (when they truly do so). If this supposed group of optimates, despite the immense material resources they possess, does not have the consent of the majority, they must be judged either inept or unrepresentative of the ‘national’ interests, which must necessarily prevail in directing the national will in one direction rather than another” (The Number and Quality in Representative Regimes, Notebook 13, paragraph 30, V ed. Gerratana, Einaudi, 1975, pp. 1624–1626). In short, if, despite the disproportionate resources at your disposal, you do not win, you are inept. And if you win but fail to convince anymore, perhaps your political time is up.
In other words, representative democracy is inherently a competition between elites and their ability to mobilise consensus in order to secure the broadest possible representative mandate from the public. But when elections are boycotted by nearly half the population and key societal groups—such as students or IT professionals—no longer consider those in power credible, a dual blow is struck against the legitimacy of those in government. They are delegitimised by voter abstention and further delegitimised by the refusal of certain elites to recognise them—not only as dominant but even as legitimate interlocutors. Every true politician knows that votes are not just counted; they are also weighed. The support of certain social groups allows one to go beyond mere electoral numbers and implement policies with the backing of the most capable and dynamic elements of the country. This, however, has not been happening in Serbia for years.
A dialogue among deafs
The idea that a certain level of economic well-being solves everything is a myth that even a first-year psychology student could debunk by recalling Maslow’s classic hierarchy of needs. On the contrary, it is the opposite: precisely when a society moves beyond mere survival, it begins to develop new political demands. The Serbian state leadership’s very recent willingness to accept the demand
s of the protests, calling for dialogue and mutual understanding, has come too late.
It is worth noting that the 2024 budget allocations for education were at record levels, but there was a clear delay in recognising what had been happening in the country for years. You cannot govern for years relying solely on the votes of pensioners and those with lower levels of education, who are more easily swayed by propaganda. Votes carry weight. And citizens who are more educated or who have higher standards of quality of life eventually make their voices heard.
Economic well-being and perception of corruption
In truth, the country’s economic growth has not been as spectacular as propaganda suggests, and the relative prosperity has primarily benefited those who could set prices in the two driving sectors: construction and trade. Go and ask a construction worker or a shop assistant if they feel this supposed prosperity. Better yet, don’t ask.
Except for 2018 and 2019, Croatia has recorded higher GDP growth than Serbia. Montenegro and Albania have also often outperformed Serbia over the past decade. No one can deny Serbia’s significant economic growth or its important geopolitical weight, but setting aside the propaganda about the “economic tiger”, food price inflation has eroded much of the wage increases in recent years.
This is not macroeconomic inflation driven by interest rates but a price growth mechanism driven by anyone who can dictate the price of their offerings. The result is that consumer goods—from cappuccinos to olive oil—now cost more in Belgrade than in the rest of Europe, making the city significantly less attractive to international managers and professionals than it was five years ago.
If you talk to a protest organiser, they will simplify things greatly and tell you that these price increases are a consequence of widespread corruption. And there it is—the unifying term that explains everything and sustains the narrative of the protests: corruption as the cause of the Novi Sad collapse, corruption as the cause of delays in roadworks, corruption as the cause of inflation, and corruption as the reason for the decline in healthcare, education, and public safety (a trend seen elsewhere in Europe, it must be noted).
In a country ranked 104th on the global Corruption Perception Index, lagging behind nearly all the countries in the region, corruption is an old evil—a habit, even a survival strategy. It is, above all, the primary indicator of distrust in the state, which is seen as incapable of fulfilling its obligations (“I’m not stealing, I’m supplementing my income given the pitiful salaries and pensions!”) and prosecuting crimes. On this issue, Vučić, who came to power promising to fight corruption and punish those who exploited privatisations, remains silent. One of the issues raised by the students concerns the accountability of politicians. They do not want new ministers who work harder but new ministers who work better—in terms of competence and, above all, in terms of their ability to account for their conduct, decisions, and the origins of their wealth to the public. In this sense, a minor government reshuffle will not suffice. The real question is: will all the expenses and contracts for Expo 2027 be made truly “accountable”? Will Serbia use the Novi Sad tragedy as a starting point to introduce new methods for public spending and new standards for selecting contractors and companies?
If the current power structure is unwilling or unable to step aside before 2027, it could at least leave the country with a legacy of good governance practices over the next two years—practices that could help piece back together the fragments of a nation left scattered on the square outside Novi Sad railway station.
(Translation by Snezana Rakic)
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