DS leader: We all need to go away

DS leader: We all need to go away

The anniversary of the start of the First World War "in which 1.2 million inhabitants of Serbia died," he continued, "was marked by our government by a cheerful and singing excursion."

He then wondered "what was celebrated - the largest budget deficit in Europe, external debt increased by nearly seven billion euros, credit rating downgraded to the level of Burkina Faso and Cambodia, highest unemployment in history, poverty rate exceeding 30 percent, lower wages and pensions, serious consequences of floods?"

"The circle is closed. The same people who did not understand that the Berlin Wall fell, which caused the tragic 1990s, are now again in power. Around them are the same tycoons who they themselves created. They are offering public companies (to tycoons) to manage, because they do not have any solutions, just as they had none before," wrote Pajtić.

Reminding that nearly 25 years have passed since the restoration of a multi-party system in Serbia, he said: "We all took our turns in power and everyone's been in coalition with everyone else, while the state of the economy, culture, education and health-care is worse than a quarter century ago."

"That's why we all need to go away. And all of us should be tested. My task will be to attend to the Democratic Party and kickstart a new generation of better, smarter and more honest politicians. They will learn all our mistakes, so they never repeat them," said the leader of the Democrats, who also serves as head of the provincial government of Vojvodina.

Pajtić believes that "the tragedy of Serbia is primarily due to our inability to control ourselves," that we are "a people condemned to eternal expectation of a final decision on whether we are East or West," and that we "squandered 200 years without wondering what we can create, instead wondering what we can get from someone."

"The fate of our country is not a question of choosing between (becoming) a Russian province, a German protectorate or a Washington outpost, but of whether a teacher from Opovo, Obrenovac or Vranje can take his family out to lunch to a modest restaurant once a week," asserted Pajtić.

According to him, there will be "no European or Eurasian Serbia unless we first build a Serbian Serbia."

"The Democratic Party lost the 2012 election because it was headed toward Europe, but left the citizens behind on the platform. We were building a European Serbia, and neglected a Serbian Serbia. That same is done today by the SNS, only with worse cadre," said Pajtić.

According to the DS leader, "our biggest mistake was failing the middle class, whose authentic representatives we should always be. Those who always wanted to live in Serbia honestly from their work and from their knowledge fell silent."

"Therefore the key task of the DS is to regain confidence and once again lead the middle class, take the middle road and a policy of an active center. The DS has to be an authentic power of the middle class and the center of reconciliation between the Serb and the civil, the point at which Serbia and the world cross," said Pajtić.