Opposition candidate for Belgrade assembly Djordje Miketic withdrew from the campaign for the December 17 local elections days after a private video of him was leaked on social networks and later to mainstream media.
“Serbia against violence” coalition candidate for Belgrade Mayor Vladimir Obradovic said that Miketic withdrew “so that we wouldn’t paint this entire campaign with those tabloid headlines”.
“I think that it [the leaking of the video] has crossed all boundaries of a decent political campaign and that this is the dirtiest thing we have ever seen,“ Obradovic told N1.
Miketic was 29th on the candidates’ list for Belgrade city assembly members, out of 110 seats.
Asked whether Miketic also withdrew from the list, one of the coalition leaders, Dobrica Veselinovic, said: “I believe that he will show great responsibility because it is a matter of much bigger stakes and the stake is change in Belgrade, and I think we should all be guided by that.”
Soon after Obradovic’s and Veselinovic’s statements Miketic issued a press release saying; “In the following days, I will deal with the legal battle and lawsuits over all the lies and fabrications that are being set up for me.”
“In the end, I will not allow [President Aleksandar] Vucic to jeopardize the victorious campaign for the liberation of our Belgrade,” Miketic wrote on X (Twitter).
Parts and screenshots of sex tape of Miketic and a female were broadcasted on Pink Television and printed in pro-government tabloids on Friday.
Last Sunday, on Pink Television, President Vucic, commenting on one of Miketic’s previous political statements, called him a “human shame“.
“He knows what I know,“ Vucic said.
The next day Miketic posted on X a screenshot of a Viber message he’d received containing a screenshot from a private video, calling it “proof that the [Serbian Intelligence Agency] BIA does not protect the state but works for Aleksandar Vucic and the SNS [Progressive Party] regime, targeting the opposition and citizens“.
On Wednesday the video was available on social media. Miketic confirmed its authenticity.
Contrary to its practice of not commenting on such things in public, the BIA issued two press releases in two days, claiming it was “not responsible for the making or distribution“ of the video.
However, it also claimed “it was irrefutably established“ that the video was “made by a male person who was in the same room” as Miketic and the other person in the video.
Local, provincial and parliamentary elections are being held on the same day in December, with the opposition pinning most of its hopes on the capital Belgrade.
