President Aleksandar Vučić

Here is a quick picture of the absurdly tall Aleksandar Vučić, long-time PM in Serbia and just recently elected President to succeed his mentor Tomislav Nikolić, with a huge majority that would have made our own PM proud! He was sworn in about 10 days’ ago in a ceremony attended by the Serbian Patriarch in Belgrade’s Andrica Venac so this picture is a bit late. That his friends and enimies both make reference to him as assuming the mantle of Tito should worry the West, but it does not seem to have done so far. And anyway, he has impeccable english! I hesitate to mention a number of scandals, from a misplaced loyalty to Ratko Mladic and a savage attack on the journalist Slavko Ćuruvija who was then murdered in what his wife alleged was some sort of state-sponsored assassination. He even managed to divorce his first wife (mother of Danilo and Milica) and marry his second just in time for her to give birth to his son. Well, this is the man who had famously implemented State censorship for Slobodan Milošević. But he assures the West that his views have changed.

While he has a good relationship with Angela Merkel, playing a very positive role in Kosovo, he seems to be alone in the EU area resisting sanctions on Russia, and in return he has options to invest in new Russian missiles. Missiles aside, what he says he wants is EU accession and greater regional stability.

serbian PM by TIM