Vučić is also thinking about the fact that the SNS car has started to “slide down the hill”: Why is Gasić more important to the president than the Government? – Politics

The removal of Gašić, who is also one of the financiers and pillars of the SNS, would also mean acknowledging the responsibility of the Serbian Progressive Party for the general situation in society, which is widely considered to be the cause of recent tragedies. By refusing the request to replace Gasic, Vučić will show his voters that he did not succumb to the pressure of the citizens and that he is personally ready to make sacrifices and stand in line with the opposition and its unrealistic demands.

It is very important for Vučić to show that he is not renouncing his cadres, especially now before the announced largest rally of government supporters on May 26, but also before the party’s Assembly, scheduled for the next day, May 27.

“Here we are not going to replace Bata Gašić, we don’t think of replacing him, the message is at the same time to SNS members and all other supporters of the government, that the party will not give up on them the next day no matter what happens and that they can be safe and protected. And above all, that there is no reason for them to waver, and they suspect that SNS has slowly begun to lose power and is retreating in the face of the demands of the opposition and citizens.

Lawyer Rodoljub Šabić tells Danas that he does not believe that Vučić is in the mood to give either the government or Gašić.

“But Gasic is very important to him, not by chance. There is no magic here. It is a matter of reality. So far, he has shown himself to be unreservedly loyal to Vučić, and such an associate at the head of the most numerous security structure can be valuable, especially in times of crisis. Apart from such a position in the state government, Gašić is also in the circle of the strongest people in the party, he controls an important part of the party’s election machinery and party financiers, both those known and those from the shadows”, explains Šabić.

According to him, on the other hand, the Government is mostly made up of characters without serious influence even on the policy of the ministries they formally lead and who are easy to give up, because they are easily replaceable.

“Even though Vučić knows this very well, he would not be happy to give them away. He likes to be the ‘protector’ in the eyes of all his people. But Vučić must also be thinking that the SNS car has started to ‘slide down the hill’, and that growing problems both internally and internationally will speed up that process over time, that the party’s rating will continue to fall. If he estimates that some upcoming extraordinary parliamentary elections could be the last ones in which the result would enable the SNS to form a government again, then he will “give it”, says lawyer Šabić.

Political scientist Mladen Mrdalj believes that Gašić is one of the pillars of the SNS and that his resignation would mean acknowledging the responsibility of progressives for the general situation in society, which is widely considered to be the cause of recent tragedies. This is how the responsibility fell on Ružić, as a prominent member of the SPS.

In addition, Gašić is a man who has under his control a significant faction within the SNS and who could command that faction even if he were to clash with Vučić. A conflict would inevitably arise if Gašić felt threatened. We should not forget that Gašić is one of the people most responsible for the rise of SNS, so letting him go down the drain would have a bad effect on others from the top of the party. In this sense, it is interesting to compare the resignation of Gašić after a sexist comment addressed to a female journalist at the end of 2015 with the helicopter crash and the current situation. A year after that resignation, Gašić was rewarded with the appointment as director of the BIA,” Mrdalj recalls.

He adds that when the helicopter fell, it was not that there were no resignations, but that Vučić then said that he “didn’t want Gašić”. As if the resignation due to a sexist comment was part of an act that was supposed to show the washed-up face of radicals, while there is no responsibility for dead people.

Despite the fact that Vučić believes that Gašić did nothing wrong” that would have made him leave the chair of the first man of the MUP, independent MP and lawyer Aleksandar Olenik does not share that opinion.

“It is shameful in itself after two mass murders, to ask about the reasons for the responsibility and guilt of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Bratislava Gašić. It is even more shameful when Aleksandar Vučić asks such questions publicly, showing that he does not have even a little basic humanity and compassion. Specifically, as much as the police could not do much in the mass murder in the Belgrade elementary school, they could, but also had to do a lot in the mass murder in the Mladenovac villages”, notes Olenik.

According to his words, it can be said that the first attack in the vicinity of Mladenovac could have surprised the police and that the absence of a police reaction can somehow be justified. That is why, he says, it cannot be said that the police did their job when a mass murderer was allowed to go to another village without any problems and continue killing everyone who found himself on the street there.

The minimum that the police had to do was to at least try to prevent the mass murderer from moving from the first village, peacefully and without resistance, to the second village and continuing the killing.

“Here we have to ask ourselves, were there any police in these two villages? Were patrols planned? Who took care of public safety in these two villages? How is it possible for a killer to fire an automatic weapon and not have any reaction from the police afterwards? How is it possible for a mass murderer to go to another village peacefully and without resistance after shooting? Immediately after the first attack, the police had to react, to go out into the street and prevent the mass murderer from going to another village and continuing the killing,” explains the Danas interlocutor.

He notes that Gašić is obliged to answer all these questions, and then to resign, because his basic duty was to provide security to the citizens, and he did not exactly do that.

“Even if it is not his fault, e.g. if the police at least tried to prevent the mass murderer from going to another village and continuing the killing, he has an objective responsibility for which his resignation is the least he has to do. There is another problem here, and that is the entire arsenal of weapons that was found with this mass murderer and his father, a high-ranking army officer. There are two possibilities, the first is that the police did not know that they had an entire arsenal, although all the locals knew it, or the police knew it, but did not react. I’m not sure which possibility is more devastating for us as a society, but it was certainly the responsibility of the police, that is, it was the responsibility of Minister Gašić,” the independent deputy points out.

He points out that the attempt to protect Bratislava Gašić is an attempt to preserve the absolute power of Aleksandar Vučić. At the same time, in this way, Vučić clearly shows the citizens that he is not interested in their safety at all, but only cares about staying in power.

“In this situation, the best solution is the resignation of the entire government, at least the resignation of Gašić and Vulin, because they are responsible for the safety of citizens. The resignation of the government can also mean elections, which would be the most normal thing. However, there is also the question of election conditions, that is, whether the elections should be held under Vučić’s conditions, especially taking into account the situation in the media. The answer to this question only seems difficult because it is enough to see the results of the disastrous boycott of the 2020 elections and compare them with the current situation after the 2022 elections. In particular, we must be ready to defend the election results on the street if necessary,” concludes Olenik.

Danas interlocutors claim that Vučić is forced to rely more heavily on power structures and to forcefully defend Bata Gašić as well. Especially in circumstances when the opposition electorate is activated, and politically passive citizens due to growing dissatisfaction with the authorities wake up and gradually express their willingness to engage. On the other hand, SNS and SPS voters are beginning to waver, aware that the state in which society has been brought threatens to threaten them personally.

Dragomir Anđelković, a political scientist, unlike other Danas interlocutors, believes that his party colleagues do not mean much to Vučić personally and that he has already easily sacrificed Gašić once.

However, the current dismissal of the Minister of Police would be understood so that the actions of that and similar institutions will be under the scrutiny of the public and the judiciary, which does not favor the expectations of the authorities to engage force structures as needed in order to potentially break up demonstrations, various types of pressure on dissidents, monitoring , wiretapping and the like.

“All these activities have a side that is not in the sphere of legality. Usually, they look for ways to fit what is useful for the regime into the framework of supposed legality, but this is always a very risky business. And those who are expected to perform it want to be absolutely sure that they will not be punished for it. The removal of the Minister of Police does not send them such a message. On the contrary. In today’s Serbia, things are different: Vučić wants to send a strong message to the system that the only thing that matters is blind loyalty to the one who is the autocratic ruler of Serbia. Everything else will somehow be taken care of,” Anđelković assesses.

Balša Božović, president of the Regional Academy for the Development of Democracy and a lawyer, believes that Vučić is aware that his absolute power depends much more on his private environment, on godfathers, friends, and the underworld, than on the official institutions of the system.

“That’s why he will always rather protect his “brothers” than care about a system that exists only as a facade. “Gašić is one of the feudal lords of this government and as such has more value for Vučić than many institutions in the country,” concludes Božović.

Danas interlocutors are convinced that no one from the ruling majority will vote for the removal of Gašić at the parliamentary session, and the question is whether the removal will even be on the agenda.