The green-left coalition, which will run in the elections in April under the common name Moramo (We Have To) was presented to the public on Wednesday, 19 January.
“Why do We Have To? Because that’s the most common phrase we’ve heard in the last year wherever we went. That is the phrase used by authentic fighters for human rights and the environment”, explained Nebojsa Zelenović from the Open Civic Platform ACTION.
“We have to because there is no one else, we have to because others won’t, we have to because others are afraid, we have to take matters into our own hands, we have to make our lives normal.”
According to Zelenović, the members of the coalition have been working for a year and a half to create a new political option in Serbia, to suit the citizens who are aware that life in Serbia is undignified and who are forced to fight against humiliation. Zelenović stated that the coalition representatives have different background and experience, adding that he has recognized this to be an asset.
“There are many of you here with whom we stood together on the streets for years. We worked and defended a lot together. We have raised the voice jointly against injustice; we have defended our cities, rivers, air and mountains. In the past seven years, we have been in every place where the public interest has been violated”, said Dobrica Veselinović from the Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own movement. Veselinović emphasized that all those who gathered to form the coalition are connected by the feeling that society can and must do better:
“We must liberate our cities, stop harmful projects, and make Belgrade a good place and Serbia a good country to live in. That feeling is shared by more and more of our fellow citizens.”
Veselinovic said that more and more citizens are worried about the quality of air, land and water, but also that more and more of them are joining the fight for them to be better, because they realized that “Serbia needs a new path, new people, new policies and different development in order for it not to become a landfill for obsolete technologies and outdated industries and for the dangerous manner of managing the environment that the current government is implementing to be stopped”.
Danijela Nestorović from the Environmental Uprising, Dušica Barović from the citizens’ group Smelo from Loznica, Biljana Đorđević from Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own and Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta from the EnvironmentalUprising also spoke at the presentation of the coalition on Wednesday.
“We will continue to do what we have been doing for the last five years: we will be everywhere where people are being threatened, and where land, water and air are in danger. We will be in the cities, we will be in the forests”, said Jovanović, adding that the members of the coalition have in their own way been campaigning for five years already and that people recognized that because the only motive of the coalition members is their love for the society and the environment.
Biljana Đorđević from the movement Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own says that We Have To, the green-left coalition, which includes the Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own movement, the Open Civic Platforms ACTION and Environmental Uprising, but also other movements such as Solidarity, Forum Roma Serbia, the Choice for Our Municipality and individual activists, is new a democratic opposition with a bottom-up approach. In the elections for the National Assembly and the Assembly of the City of Belgrade it will try to replicate the good results achieved by similar political groups in Europe, albeit under much more difficult, authoritarian political circumstances.
“This coalition will fight against air, water and land pollution and advocate for the protection of natural, public and cultural goods, for social justice, in favour of better education, decentralization, local economic development. It will fight for democratic decision-making and wide citizen participation in formulating solutions to their problems”, said Đorđević.
The We Have To coalition was formally presented in Dorćol Square in Belgrade.
I.K.
This article was ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED in Serbian on Jan 20, 2022.
