Constructing the Enemy Within: Predominant Populist Party in Serbia

Populist parties have been perceived as protest parties or parties that are not suitable for governing; there was an expectation that populist element will decrease over time and that populist parties will de-radicalize themselves once they become the part of institutions. Additionally, since anti-elitism is the core of populist ideology (Mudde 2004), it was expected that being in power would frame populists as the new elite. Recent developments showed that those expectations proved to be inaccurate and that populist parties can sustain their power and ideological profile (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2017). Populist in EEC went one step ahead and managed to institutionalize party system as the system with predominant party, meaning that single party has majority of MPs in several consecutive elections. Hungarian Fides and Serbian SNS can serve as the examples of this trend. The main challenge for the ruling parties in these countries to keep the core populist concept of anti-elitism while being in power. In this paper we are analyzing the Serbian SNS tactics and their search for the alienated elites. As the ruling party of the candidate state for EU membership, the SNS is in different position compared to Fidesz or Polish PiS – it cannot be openly EU skeptic or anti-EU. Even more, EU support is important for the legitimacy of the regime (Bieber 2020). The opposition is weak and marginalized. Since 2014 parliamentary elections, the SNS is winning more than 50% MPs, in contrast to 6-8% of votes for several individual opposition parties. Furthermore, due to 2020 election boycott by the main opposition parties, the number of non-majority MPs decreased to only 6 (out of 250). Therefore, the regime has to find ‘enemies’ among actors that are still viable – civil society and independent media representatives. This tactic is not unseen, because populist often encounter oversight and scrutinizing actors, but in Serbian case these are presented as the key opponents to the regime. Following the analysis of three main political crises in the last years – balcony protests, anti-curfew protests and students protest against the removal from dorms, we are researching the dynamics between the regime and civil society. Our aim is to search for populist elements in narratives used by the SNS during these conflicts; these narratives will provide us with better understanding of the conflict, the ways SNS understands the position of civil society and the models of democracy promoted by the ruling party. The analysis is based on the discourse analysis of media narratives about the protests and interviews with the representatives of SNS and civil society engaged in the protest.