Opposition Official: By Labeling Students Government Has Caused Their Parents to Stand Up

Zdravko Ponos( BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/MO)

Serbia Center party leader Zdravko Ponos said on Jan. 9 that the government had made a mistake by labeling students foreign lackeys and traitors and that by doing so it had caused the parents, brothers and sisters of the students occupying faculties to "rise up."

He told the Danas newspaper that the student rebellion had spread fast and that the authorities had no idea what to do. "The rebellion is spreading like fire. When you try to put that fire out by dousing it with insults against students which is a vocabulary that is amply used for the opposition, then it is clear that (Serbian President Aleksandar) Vucic is not going to be able to step away from the logic of the pack (...) By brutally attacking students whose parents were expelled to Serbia in (Croatian operation) Storm the government has shot itself in the leg," Ponos said.

He added that the authorities were not focusing and finding the cause of the Novi Sad railway station roof collapse that killed 15 people and everything that the state had done as a result of public pressure.