Green Shoots in Serbia a Worry for Ruling Party and Opponents

Ecological protest in Belgrade in front of the Parliament. April 10, 2021. Photo: Marko Miletic

After Zagreb… Belgrade?

Following the election of green-left candidate Tomislav Tomasevic as mayor of Zagreb in neighbouring Croatia this year, Belgrade could be the next city to fall to an emerging Green movement, capitalising on widespread anger in the city over air pollution and crumbling infrastructure.

ORSP and Ne Davimo Beograd are mulling a run with a newly-formed green platform called Action, led by Nebojsa Zelenovic, the former mayor of the western Serbian town of Sabac.

For a time, Zelenovic, 46, was the last opposition mayor in Serbia, with a programme widely seen as innovative for Serbian standards given his green policies and efforts to involve ordinary people in decision-making.

He was previously a member of the Democratic Party, DS, which ruled for 12 years after the ouster of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, but has managed to shed the baggage carried by many former DS members because of the way they ran the country.

Zelenovic, whose surname comes from the Serbian word for 'green' - 'zelen' - says he developed an interest in environmental policies while mayor of Sabac, citing a new wastewater treatment plant as one example.

"During that process we understood how important these topics are," he told BIRN. "We didn't take them on because they were green, but because they were needed by all our citizens."

Nebojsa Zelenovic and Radomir Lazovic from Ne davimo Beograd at the joint press conference, July 2021. Photo: Ne davimo Beograd

All aboard the 'green train'

But while Zelenovic is a relatively recent convert to environmentalism, Ne Davimo...

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