Four undercuts in fulfilling the fourth student request: third anonymous letter from one professor in blockade – personal attitudes

With this letter, I especially want to point you into four bows in the fulfillment of that request, and I will use the opportunity to say something about who has political legitimacy in Serbia today.

The first subcussion has already occurred when the government tried to present the fulfillment of the request by increasing only « material costs » for higher education of 20%, which should have been a total increase in higher education budgets only 4%.

I remind you that this is the easiest requirement – the only one who can fulfill without any progress in a chair or in the worst end in prison. This shows that the government essentially does not want to meet your requirements, but only wants to constitute the story that they are fulfilled.

Another fuel was introduced by the unnecessary bureaucratic procedure according to which students will pay full tuition to their faculties, and the state will then refund 50% of the paid tuition amount from the budget. You will decide whether you accept such a solution, but in my opinion you need to insist that the request is fulfilled as you requested – so you pay 50%, not full tuition. The potential problem here is that the government can then condition the reimbursement of the tuition from the budget by interrupting the blockades, and if the faculties still remain in the blockade will call them to return the money. In this way, I can try to cause conflict between you and your professors, and between you yourself.

The third branch is a promise of government on increasing salaries in higher education of 15.97%. It is one of the traps I talked about in the last letter – a wage increase is a means of undercutting that power wants to share professors and students. This was recognized by Professor Biljana Stojković when this decision commented in words: « Students are not for sale, and we are neither professors. » No one spores that professorial salaries in Serbia are too small, but as a professor is an unacceptable increase in salary of 15 percent in conditions that are the result of deaths 15 people. With this branch, the government wants to support a lie that repeatedly repeated: that professors earned students to protests and then they first provided higher salaries. Your plenums have the freedom to suggest a different distribution since you provided these additional 20% from the budget.

The fourth sub-driver is procrastinating the authorities with the fulfillment of this request, which led to a great delay in his fulfillment. You have searched for an increase in budgets for the whole of 2025. year, the Assembly will most likely be vulnerable only in March, and the application will start at the earliest in April. When it comes to monetary obligations, interest pays for delays. You are right and think about what interest you would like the authority to pay. Your request includes 50% lower tuition and you also stated that « this first step towards free education ». As interest you can seek the guarantee that steps to free education will continue. For example, you could formulate as an amendment that will prescribe every year to reduce tuition for an additional 5 or 10% until education becomes free. Many European countries have a higher education that is free of charge: Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden … Of course, as well as all previous, your plans should also issue that a question.

The session of the Assembly begins 4. Marta, and according to the announcement, will be discussed and vote on the proposed legal changes, and after that the resignation of the Government will be stated. This is contrary to Article 132 of the Constitution that stipulates that the resignation of the Prime Minister will be noted at the first next session of the Assembly. So, the government has not fallen yet, and the question is when, which will create an unconstitutional state.

The progressive plan for the entry of the new government we saw at the local level – in the city where it all started to tragedy in the direction of corrupt city and state power. In order to prevent the participation of opposition councilors of the Novi Sad Assembly, the SNS hired the police and thus placed the same people in the city government as they were before them, only with other names and surnames. The Novi Sad scenario will try to apply at the state level – such undemocratic and contradictory methods will try to impose a new government without political legitimacy.

The Government's legitimacy wrote John Lok, the most influential political philosopher of the 17th century. In its capital part « two discussions on the government », he stated that people form governments through a social contract to protect their natural rights, including the right to life. Lok believed that when the government fails to protect these rights or violates them, people have the right to replace it. It is the essence of a democratic legitimacy that this power has lost, while you have become the bearers of that legitimacy. Skeptics may be wondering: How do we know that?

The evidence of the legitimacy is a recent feature of the line that shows that your requirements supports you the vast majority of citizens (64-80%), as well as hundreds of thousands of citizens who have publicly and voluntarily expressed support on the streets and squares. At the same time, the advent of threats to defects, sandevices and buses that brought people from all over Serbia and Republika Srpska barely collected 14 thousand people in Sremska Mitrovica (source: archive of public gatherings). So much for legitimacy.

From the date of which the Assembly will state the resignation of the government begins the constitutional period of 30 days for the election of the new government. As I stated in the first letter, it is an opportunity to choose those who have knowledge and integrity in blocking, and then suggest them as a transitional government that will end the contradictory action of the government and provide honest elections. This is what the president is most scared when he said, « There will be no transition, neither expert governments, i guarantee you with my life. » He is not competent for the election of the Government, but the Assembly.

In the end, I will only answer the comments of advanced bots and tabloids that I am a Croat mixed in student protests in Serbia. The kids are trying, no one believes in it anymore. When I started writing to you, I knew that when I would declare me a Croat. And then I said, « Mile, now or never! »

The author is a university professor and an expert in transitional justice

The author's attitudes in the dialogue not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Danas.