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Donald Tusk endorsed president Vučić on Twitter before and after the Serbian parliamentary and local elections with these two tweets. Tusk’s endorsement of president Vučić comes as no surprise. Tusk and Vučić have a history of praising and endorsing each other and they usually do it with perfect timing.  In 2017. Juncker and Tusk wrote a letter congratulating Aleksandar Vučić on winning the elections (HERE), and Vucic congratulated Tusk for his reelection as President of European Council (HERE). Just one year later, during his meeting with Vučić, Tusk made this remark: “I know that, in politics, you are as creative as Nikola Tesla was in science, as effective as Novak Djokovic has been in tennis, and – whenever you want to – as charming as your kolo dance.” (HERE) From that time of his presidency in European Council, Tusk is perceived as a EU representative in pro government media, so his endorsement is often used to portray that the EU supports Vučić. So what’s the issue here? First of all, Tusk wishes luck and later congratulates Vučić on the elections in which he should not even participate. The elections are parliamentary and local, but Vučić is using his presidential status to promote his own political party. Secondly, these elections, as many before them, are accompanied by numerous irregularities and scandals. Vast majority of the opposition boycotted the elections (HERE) due to systemic corruption and lack of independent media (HERE) and serious irregularities reported from independent observers (HERE). In order to justify the elections, Vučić’s regime consciously managed the corona pandemic with jokes and pranks. As if the relativisation and laughing at coronavirus wasn’t enough (HERE), the regime lied about the numbers of infected cases and diseased from COVID-19 (HERE), purposely lowering numbers. After the elections, he announced the situation is suddenly dramatic, the hospitals are full and a three day lockdown of Belgrade is needed. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People surged on the streets just a couple of hours after his announcement surrounding the national assembly building. (HERE) This is why Tusk’s endorsement creates a lot of confusion when combined with the complex political situation surrounding these elections, coronavirus measures and now protests. But let’s try and be fair and give Tusk the chance of being misinformed about these elections and the situation in Serbia. What’s there to know about Vučić? Let’s imagine that Tusk did not do the due research and does not know Vučić’s political background. First thing you should know is that Vučić was the right hand of the far-right leader of Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Šešelj during the 90’s Yugoslav war. So basically, he was the secretary general in a political party whose leader was later convicted for war crimes in the Hague Tribunal. The best example of what Vučić represented in those days was his statement that he made in the national assembly: “for every Serb killed, we will kill 100 Muslims” only a few days after the Srebrenica massacre. (HERE) I am struggling to find words to describe that behavior, other than war mongering and incitement for war crimes. After the war, he became Minister of Information under the regime of Slobodan Milošević. Vučić introduced fines for journalists who criticized the government and banned foreign TV networks. Human Rights Watch reported that five independent newspaper editors were charged with disseminating misinformation because they wrote about Albanians who had died in Kosovo as “people” rather than “terrorists”. (You can read the whole report HERE) Serbian media were under severe repression of the state, and prominent independent journalist Slavko Ćuruvija was heavily criticized by Vucic and was killed under mysterious circumstances and the court never established who ordered the killing. (HERE) Then in 2003. he saw off his political mentor Vojislav Šešelj on his way to The Hague Tribunal with tears in his eyes. Just a few years later, while Šešelj was on trial for war crimes Vučić betrayed him and started a political party with Tomislav Nikolic, making an ideological u-turn from far-right and anti-EU to progressive and pro-EU. Vučić said that he was wrong and that he had sincerely changed, stating “I was not ashamed to confess all my political mistakes”. Maybe Tusk believes him and does not go deeper into it  or maybe he considers even that to be the strong leadership that he endorses. Vučić regime now Vučić came to power in 2012. despite the fact he was officially just the First Deputy Prime Minister. He became Prime Minister in 2014, and then in 2017. he became president. Much like Putin, Vučić has the same amount of political power regardless of the official position he holds. Let me remind you that Serbia is a parliamentary democracy with a constitution that protects the separation of power and independent judiciary, but all important political decisions are made in the presidential cabinet. Just knowing this one fact shows you that Vučić is exceeding the limits of our constitution daily. You can see it in detail in this piece covering the drawbacks of the Serbian Judiciary Reform (HERE) Vučić is in power for 8 years and he did not participate in even one public debate with the opposition. Not even one. Control of the media is more aggressive than ever, every opposing opinion is portrayed as coup d’etat, so the opposing voices are often portrayed as traitors on national TV.  You can read more about how opposition in Serbia is reacting to that HERE. To be fair, in this particular endorsement Tusk is praising the economic success of Vučić’s rule. But to be honest, that part sparked the most outrage here. So, what’s the situation in Serbian economy during Vučić’s rule? Well, according to Vučić Serbia is “No. 1 country on the whole European continent this year in terms of growth rate,” and “one of the best in the whole world.” Maybe Tusk is referring to this recent claim. On the other hand, Serbia is a country with a median