A letter to all Serbian pensioners from the Galápagos

“Brothers and sisters” among Serbia’s roughly 1.9 million pensioners are addressed in a satirical letter supposedly written by the country’s president from the Galápagos. The text says the letter was put on paper so it would not end up in an email spam folder, though it could still reach the wrong apartment if the postman got drunk.

The narrator jokingly claims that pensions did not exist before he came to power. He says he personally invented monthly payments for older citizens and even registered the idea with the intellectual property office. Before that, the letter says, pensioners survived by trapping pigeons on balconies and watching Turkish soap operas on Pink television.

The mock letter then turns to the October 25 election. It claims students want to abolish pensions for pensioners and create them only for students, leaving older voters with the choice of enrolling at university or voting for the president, who promises another increase after the election.

The proposed increases become increasingly absurd. Pensioners who lock in relatives supporting the student list would supposedly receive a 20 percent rise. Those without family members at home are told to pretend to be ill so people coming to help them miss the vote, earning a 25 percent increase. The passage ends while describing another scheme involving relatives who support the student list.