The opening session of Serbia’s spring parliament descended into chaos as opposition MPs fired flares and smoke grenades inside the assembly to protest against President Aleksandar Vučić, leaving at least three people in hospital.
Peaceful demonstrations against the alleged graft and authoritarianism of the Vučić regime have rumbled on for months, and forced the resignation of his prime minister in January.
But the scenes of violence on the parliament floor marked a significant escalation of the protests sparked by a fatal rail station accident late last year that was blamed on government corruption.
Video footage of the incident inside the Belgrade parliament on Tuesday showed pink and grey smoke filling the halls, as a chorus of rattles, whistles and vuvuzelas blared over the speakers.
At one point, a brick-sized object was launched towards the ruling party MP Jasmina Obradović, striking her on the head. She was taken to hospital in a serious condition. Sonja Ilić, an MP who is eight-months pregnant, was also taken to hospital, where doctors were fighting to save her baby, according to parliament speaker Ana Brnabić. At least one more lawmaker was injured.
“You’ve started something never seen before in Serbia — shame on you,” Brnabić told opposition MPs, referring to them as a “terrorist gang, not a political party”.
Despite the chaos, the parliament continued its session, scheduled to pass dozens of laws in response to the protests.
The wave of demonstrations was ignited by the collapse of a train station roof in the city of Novi Sad in November that killed 15 people. They have since turned into the most serious threat yet faced by Vučić, who has led the Balkan country in various roles since 2017.
Vučić, who was information minister to the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, has cultivated close relations with both Russia and Donald Trump’s new US administration, while also claiming to be committed to his country joining the EU.
As the drama inside the assembly unfolded, students gathered outside chanting “thieves” and blockading nearby streets.
However the parliament protest was unlikely to endear the opposition to the students, who view all lawmakers as corrupt and inefficient, said Helena Ivanov, associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think-tank. “It’s difficult to see what’s next, how this is a strategy that will lead to elections that they can win,” she said.
The upheaval comes as tensions threaten to erupt across the Balkan region. In Bosnia, an ethnic Serb leader is rejecting the central government’s authority and a recent election returned an Albanian nationalist to power in Kosovo.
In Serbia, the sanctions threat made by the former Biden administration still hangs over the country’s main oil company NIS unless its Russian majority owners sell their stake.
A first deadline of February 28 was extended by a month. If Russian companies Gazprom and Gazprom Neft refuse to sell, NIS will theoretically be unable to import oil into Serbia, potentially leading to a supply crisis.
It is unclear what effect recent US-Russian rapprochement will have on the sanctions threat.
Vuk Vuksanović, senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy think-tank, said closer ties between Washington and Moscow since Trump took office, and a possible end to the fighting in Ukraine, could offer some relief to the embattled Serbian leader.
“Vučić is probably tired of constantly being asked about Russian ties,” Vuksanović said. “They believe this will ease the pressure and remove one hot issue from the table.”
