Vučić accepts the debate with the Student List on RTS: “They will lose every debate”

Serbia’s public broadcaster (RTS) has invited President Aleksandar Vučić, the Student List’s lead candidate Ilija Srdanović and the director of the CRTA organization to a pre-election debate. As Nova.rs reports, Vučić responded positively to the invitation, but claims the students’ candidates “would lose in every debate.”

Speaking about RTS, Vučić said: “I accept, with them too and with the first on the list of the blockading students, whatever they’re called. If after so many years and 15-16 hours of engagement every day I am not able to answer your questions, then I should not be doing this job.” According to him, the student list does not bring new faces, but “old, well-known faces” that have not been successful in their work.

The blockading students responded to RTS with an official letter, asking to be informed before any debate about the topic, format, duration and fellow participants. They clarify that professor Ilija Srdanović is the first candidate on the “Student List – Students Win” list, but is not its “bearer” in the sense defined by electoral law, and that the debate should bring together people with knowledge and experience in the relevant field.

As Nova.rs reports, they also ask in what capacity Vučić would appear — as the country’s president (the function he still holds) or as the list bearer for the parliamentary elections — saying they can hardly debate someone who has pardoned those who attacked students. The students call on RTS to act during the campaign as a true public service: equal, fair, balanced and impartial coverage of all electoral participants, as RTS’s own rules prescribe.

This comes on the day Vučić announced his resignation from the presidency — expected tonight around 20:00 — to enter the campaign as the bearer of the “United Serbia” list for the early parliamentary elections of October 25.