Aleksandar Vucic

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Aleksandar Vučić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Александар Вучић ; born March 5, 1970 in Belgrade , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a Serbian politician and incumbent President of Serbia . He is also the chairman of the Serbian Progressive Party .

Vučić had previously been Serbian Prime Minister since April 2014. From 1993 to 2008 he was a member of the Serbian Radical Party , for which he was Serbian Minister of Information from 1998 to 2000. In 2008 he became a member of the Serbian Progress Party , of which he has been party leader since 2012. On April 2, 2017 he was elected President of Serbia . He was also the Minister of Defense of Serbia from 2012 to 2013 and First Deputy Prime Minister from 2012 to 2014.

In April 2017, Vučić was elected President of the Republic of Serbia. Because he was elected with 55% in the first round, there was no second round of voting, as is usually the case. On May 31, 2017, he succeeded Tomislav Nikolić . His swearing-in ceremony took place on June 23, 2017.

Early life, family and education

Vučić was born in Belgrade in 1970 as the child of parents Anđelko and Angelika Vučić, b. Milovanov, born. His parents' ancestors came from Čipuljić , near Bugojno in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina ; they were expelled from the Ustasha regime during World War II and settled in Belgrade, where Vučić's father was born. Vučić's paternal grandfather was killed by the Ustaša along with his close relatives. His mother comes from Bečej in Vojvodina . His parents were both business graduates; his father worked as an economist , his mother as a journalist .

He spent his early years in New Belgrade , where he graduated from the Branko Radičević Elementary School. In Zemun he finished high school.

Vučić studied law at the University of Belgrade and graduated as one of the best students in his class. He learned English in Brighton , England and worked there as a businessman . After returning to Yugoslavia, he worked as a journalist in Pale and interviewed Radovan Karadžić and played chess with Ratko Mladić . As a young adult, Vučić was a supporter of the Red Star Belgrade football club , to whose games he was often in the stadium; in Zagreb's Maksimir Stadium he was present at the game Dinamo Zagreb against Red Star Belgrade, which is often seen as the starting point of the conflicts in Yugoslavia because of the violent riots .

Vučić is married and has three children.

Political career

In 1993 he joined the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), which with its ultra-nationalist ideology is striving for a Greater Serbia with the border points Virovitica, Karlovac and Karlobag , and was elected for the first time as a member of the Serbian National Assembly in the same year . In 1995 he became General Secretary of the SRS. After his party won the local elections in the Zemun district of Belgrade in 1996, he became the director of the Pinki Hall, a sports and cultural center in Belgrade.

Bosnian War

Vučić worked from 1992 to 1993 during the Bosnian war as a reporter for the propaganda television channel "Channel S" of the Bosnian Serbs in Pale .

In 1995, he threatened the Belgrade Parliament that a hundred Muslims would be killed for every Serbs killed.

Croatian war

In 1995, Aleksandar Vučić, as a member of the SRS parliament, paid a visit to the occupied Croatian city of Glina shortly before Operation Storm ( Oluja ) . He greeted "a heroic people who had already revolted against an alleged Ustaša power in the summer of 1991". At that time Vučić accused Slobodan Milosevic of loyalty to Western countries since Milosevic was willing to Vance-Owen - peace plan to accept.

He also said: “ Nikada Srpska Krajina, nikada Glina neće biti hrvatska! Nikada Banija neće nazad u Hrvatsku! ” - Literal translation:“ The Serbian Krajina , never Glina will be Croatian (or Croatia). The Banija (also Banovina) will never come back to Croatia! "

Minister of Information (1998-2000)

In March 1998 he was appointed Minister of Information to Mirko Marjanović's cabinet . Due to the growing resentment against Slobodan Milošević , Vučić introduced fines for journalists criticizing the government and banned foreign TV channels. In 2014 he said afterwards that he was wrong and that he was not ashamed to admit his own mistakes.

During Vučić's tenure, the Serbian media were often criticized for spreading nationalist propaganda that demonized ethnic minorities and legitimized Serbian atrocities against them. On April 23, 1999, NATO bombed the Serbian Radio building as part of the Kosovo War , killing 16 people. The NATO leadership legitimized this operation by stating that, on the one hand, the control, command and communication network of the Yugoslav armed forces would have to be disrupted and that Serbian radio played a large part in the propaganda inciting against the Kosovar population .

From the SRS to the SNS

Tomislav Nikolić , deputy chairman of the Serbian Radical Party and interim president of the party during Vojislav Šešelj's absence , resigned on September 6, 2008 because of a dispute with Šešelj over Serbia's membership of the EU . Together with some other well-known members of the SRS, Nikolić founded the new parliamentary group Forward Serbia ( Напред Србијо / Napred Srbijo ), which is why they were officially excluded from the SRS on September 12, 2008, according to the decision of the SRS Presidium. Vučić, who was considered a "docile student of the warbringer" Vojislav Šešelj, did not appear at this presidium meeting, although he was part of the presidium as general secretary.

Vučić together with Nikolić at the founding party congress of the SNS

Nikolić announced that he would found his own party and asked Vučić to join. He, as one of the leaders of the SRS, announced his resignation on September 14, 2008 and declared his retirement from politics the following day . Nonetheless, on October 6, 2008, Vučić announced in a television interview that he intended to join the Serbian Progressive Party , newly founded by Nikolić . He will be the party's vice president. Subsequently, he fundamentally changed his position, especially with regard to the Serbian national question . With regard to the Srebrenica massacre , he spoke of a "cruel crime" and was ashamed of what the Serbs had done. In an interview with the AFP , he said he was wrong and proud to have changed his political positions on the matter.

To run for President of Serbia, Nikolić resigned on May 24, 2012 from the post of party leader. After Vučić was interim president of the party until the SNS congress on September 29, 2012, he was confirmed by the party together with Jorgovanka Tabaković as deputy party leader.

Defense Minister and First Deputy Prime Minister (2012-2013)

Vučić with the Austrian Foreign Minister Kurz 2013 in Belgrade

For a short time, Vučić was Defense Minister and First Deputy Prime Minister as the successor to Ivica Dačić from July 27, 2012 to September 2, 2013. Even though Vučić was only a deputy in the cabinet of Prime Minister Dačić, who de jure held the most power as head of government He was seen by many observers as the most powerful person in government because he was the party leader of the SNS, which had a majority in the coalition and in parliament.

Prime Minister (2014-2017)

General election 2014

As a result of the parliamentary elections in Serbia in 2014 , the SNS won 158 out of 250 possible seats in the Skupština under the top candidate Vučić and formed a coalition with the Socialist Party of Serbia with him as Prime Minister.

General election 2016

President (since 2017)

The presidential election in Serbia 2017 took place on April 2, 2017. Since Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić received an absolute majority in the first ballot, a runoff election on April 16 was not necessary. Vučić's inauguration into the presidency finally took place on May 31, 2017.

Although the Serbian constitution says that the president is not allowed to hold any further office, Vučić disregarded this by remaining chairman of the Serbian Progressive Party .

In the course of the Covid 19 pandemic in Serbia , Vučić imposed a state of emergency at the end of April 2020 (after previously declared curfews ) without a parliamentary decision ; whether he thereby committed a breach of the constitution is controversial.

At the beginning of June 2020, the restrictions were comprehensively relaxed; since then the number of new infections has increased again (June 2: 18 new infections, since July 3, over 300 new infections per day).

Alleged media manipulation and censorship

In mid-2014, journalists' associations expressed concern about media freedom in Serbia. Vučić was sharply criticized as Prime Minister. There is almost no more opposition in the country . It is also reported that “the tabloid press is like a slapstick of the government” that “commits character assassination of opponents of the regime” and that there is hardly any media critical of the regime , since Vučić would place himself above state institutions . Jovana Gligorijević, a well-known journalist in Serbia, also expressed concern, saying that " freedom of speech is very much threatened, with websites recently blocked, blogs removed and bloggers arrested," for which Gligorijević indirectly blamed Vučić. She complained that all of the cases were critical of the regime and that on the other hand there were hardly any articles that were critical of the regime in the daily press , which led to self-censorship. The situation worsened when the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media , Dunja Mijatović, wrote to the Serbian Prime Minister about the “suppression of the media”. Vučić replied that many representatives of the international community, foreign ambassadors and the OSCE were campaigning against him "because Serbia does not want to impose sanctions on Russia because of the Ukraine crisis " and that suppressing the media was "nonsense".

With a few remaining exceptions, the media in Serbia is entirely focused on him. The Serbian media entrepreneur Goran Veselinović or the oligarch Željko Mitrović (via TV Pink ) only report positively on Vučić. One of the few remaining independent newspapers is the liberal Belgrade newspaper “Danas” or the weekly “Vreme”. On television, the Serbian programs of " Deutsche Welle " and "N1" are the few media that report in a balanced way and also allow Vučić's opponents to have their say.

At the end of the Vucics election campaign, the seven largest daily newspapers in Serbia appeared with identical front pages - the initials “A” and “V” and the campaign slogan: “Faster. Stronger. Better. Serbia. Vote Vucic! "

literature

Web links

Commons : Aleksandar Vučić  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Presidential election in Serbia: election winner Vucic promises a course towards the EU . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . April 3, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed on August 29, 2017]).
  2. ↑ a b Порекло Александра Вучића. In: Порекло. April 8, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Aleksandar Vučić | Istinomer. November 3, 2014, archived from the original on November 3, 2014 ; accessed on August 29, 2017 .
  4. ↑ inbox-online.com: Ispao majci dok ga je dojila . In: Press Online . September 6, 2010 ( pressonline.rs [accessed August 28, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Vučić se prisjetio dana kada se tukao s Boysima na Maksimiru: Bilo je to očekivano, osjećala se mržnja . May 13, 2015 ( index.hr [accessed August 28, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Александр Вучич. Retrieved June 24, 2020 (Russian).
  7. ^ A b Munzinger-Archiv GmbH, Ravensburg: Aleksandar Vučić - Munzinger Biographie. Retrieved November 25, 2017 .
  8. ↑ a b Keno Verseck: Presidential election in Serbia: Vucic, the Almighty . In: Spiegel Online . April 2, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed November 26, 2017]).
  9. ↑ a b Vučić iz 1995 .: “Glina nikad neće biti hrvatska!” 2017 ( express.hr [accessed on November 26, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Aleksandar Vučić u okupiranoj Glini 1995 , YouTube , accessed on September 2, 2019
  11. ↑ Narod koji ima najkraće pamćenje na svetu - Vučić priča o cenzuri medija . In: Preko ramena . October 5, 2012 ( prekoramena.com [accessed August 29, 2017]).
  12. ↑ Guy De Launey: Serbia transforming from pariah to EU partner . In: BBC News . January 21, 2014 ( bbc.com [accessed August 29, 2017]).
  13. ^ Tim Judah: The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia . 3rd ed. Yale University Press, New Haven [Conn.] 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-15826-7 .
  14. ↑ Laura Rozen: Serbia's culture shock. October 31, 2000, accessed August 29, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Nikolić: I Vučić napustio radical :: Mondo. September 15, 2008, archived from the original on September 15, 2008 ; accessed on August 29, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Aleksandar Vucic: from nationalist hawk to devout Europeanist | GlobalPost. March 22, 2014, archived from the original on March 22, 2014 ; accessed on August 29, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Guy De Launey: Serbia transforming from pariah to EU partner . In: BBC News . January 21, 2014 ( bbc.com [accessed September 3, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Danas: izbori: Ipsos Vučiću 56.5 odsto Glasová, Janković drugi. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  19. ↑ http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=02&dd=28&nav_id=100637
  20. ↑ a b Keno Verseck: Democracy is locked up. Retrieved April 28, 2020 .
  21. ↑ For evidence see Covid 19 pandemic in Serbia
  22. ↑ a b c Andrej Ivanji: The sloppiness of Mr. Vucic. In: Die Tageszeitung , July 21, 2015.
  23. ↑ Michael Martens: Presidential Election: How Serbia's Prime Minister is expanding his power. April 2, 2017. Retrieved November 25, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Vučić, Aleksandar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian President
DATE OF BIRTH March 5th 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Belgrade