If a well-ordered state has a police force and a prosecution service, what is the purpose of the President’s website for reporting arrogant officials? While the authorities celebrate millions of visits to the “Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?” (Ko si bre ti) platform, our interlocutors point out that this is merely another attempt to render the judicial system meaningless while corruption persists.
The platform was designed as a mechanism through which citizens can report the arrogant behaviour of officials, corruption, and abuse of office, as well as various local and municipal issues. The name itself, “Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?”, is an allusion to a phrase well-known in Serbian social discourse: “Do you know who I am?”.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, stated that 429 reports were received within 24 hours on the platform for reporting “arrogant government officials”, but also that there were 5.7 million visits to the website, which he presented as an overseas cyberattack aimed at bringing the platform down.
The fight against corruption has been one of the President’s favourite election campaign manoeuvres since 2012. This time, the war on corruption has moved into the digital sphere.
Bypassing Institutions
The question arises: what is the purpose of the platform if the Prosecution Service and the police already exist? Furthermore, is this an admission by the authorities that institutions are failing to do their jobs, and an attempt to shift the fight against corruption outside of institutional frameworks?
Stefan Janjić, an MP for the Serbia Centre (SRCE) party, told Danas that the “Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?” platform represents another attempt to move the fight against corruption away from institutions and into the political sphere. He added that in any well-ordered state, there is already a place to report suspicions of corruption, malpractice, and law-breaking: the prosecution service, the police, and other competent authorities.
“Therefore, a simple question arises: if we have a prosecution service, what is the purpose of this platform? If citizens feel that the institutions are not doing their jobs, then the responsibility lies with the government, which has controlled these institutions for years and eroded their independence. If the institutions are functioning, the platform is redundant. If they are not, then this platform is actually an admission that the state is failing to do its job,” our interlocutor said.
According to him, it is particularly problematic that the platform cannot be used to report all the abuses that citizens suffer on a daily basis.
“How will a citizen use it to report political pressure, the abuse of public resources during campaigns, party-political employment, vote-buying, the selective application of the law, or corruption involving top state officials? The competent authorities do not respond to such reports anyway,” Janjić asked.
He pointed out that before every election, we hear announcements of historic crackdowns on corruption, yet the result is that year after year, Serbia records increasingly poorer indicators in the areas of the rule of law and corruption perception.
“The fight against corruption is not waged through marketing campaigns, internet platforms, and political spectacles, but through an independent prosecution service, a professional police force, and courts that make decisions free from political pressure. The state must not function on the principle of citizens reporting cases to the President; instead, they should submit reports to the institutions responsible for them. Anything else is the replacement of the legal order with political marketing,” Janjić concluded.
A blurred line between party and state
Nemanja Nenadić, Program Director of Transparency Serbia, said that alongside numerous other issues – starting with the legal basis for setting it up – the key question here is whether all reported cases of corruption will be forwarded to the prosecution service or if the platform’s administrators will carry out some form of screening.
He added that even without the platform, many people used to turn to the President, either because they had already tried to resolve their problem through all the relevant competent institutions, or because of the impression that “Vučić decides everything”.
As with almost everything else, according to our interlocutor, the line between party and state was blurred when this portal was announced. Therefore, it is possible that the gathered information will also be used for certain internal party purposes – for instance, identifying which local officials are unpopular due to their arrogant behaviour, and the like.
“The portal contains explanations for reporting corruption and ‘arrogant behaviour’, but there is no information on who has access to the data and how the reports will be handled. For this reason, it is currently impossible to assess to what extent the portal will contribute to the public interest, or what the risks of misuse are,” Nenadić concluded.
“The brains of the operation”
“Vučić is the brains, the organiser, and the sole boss of the clientelist, corrupt apparatus that is ravaging Serbia! Everything stems from him and everything ends with him!” Dragan Šormaz, founder of the Euro-Atlantic Council of Serbia, told Danas.
As he explained, there is a misconception among the domestic public that the rule of law is synonymous with judicial reform and enacted laws just to ensure EU membership. He added that while this is necessary, we must also apply those laws and enable institutions to destroy crime and corruption.
“The fight against corruption is not about reporting some mayor, local chief, or minor director to the President so that he can dismiss them and then replace them with more of his own people—because they cannot be any different! There must be punishments for high-level corruption! Vesić must be held accountable, instead of hiding in Trieste and enjoying himself! There must be convictions for the railway canopy disaster, for Chinese tenders, for corruption in the police, courts, ministries, and public enterprises… Vučić’s portal cannot solve this because Vučić cannot lead that fight! Every case of high-level corruption leads directly to him, because he set up the system that way himself,” Šormaz concluded.
(Danas, 13.07.2026)
https://www.danas.rs/vesti/politika/ko-si-bre-ti-portal-korupcija/