“After Tito, Tito”: Has Serbia’s Student Movement Broken the Myth That the Country Needs a Strong Leader?

Serbia’s leaderless student movement has reopened an old political question: does the country still need a strong leader and a “firm hand,” or is a new generation beginning to reject that model?

Political scientist Nikola Parun says multiparty politics did not erase the cult of personality. In his view, belief in a strong hand reaches far back through Serbia’s political history, from Tito and King Alexander to earlier rulers from the Obrenović and Karađorđević dynasties. Institutions developed alongside strong rule, he argues, rather than replacing it.

“

Between Milošević and Vučić there was none; before Milošević, Tito, before Tito, King Alexander, before him Petar, and before him a series of Obrenović and Karađorđević rulers, beginning with Karađorđe.

Parun says multiparty politics brought a more democratic choice between different powerful figures who could lead the country, while the incentive to transfer power from individuals and their loyal networks to laws and independent institutions remains weak. Leaders can present themselves as the people who solve problems quickly, he says, encouraging voters to accept dependence on a ruler in exchange for practical benefits, even at the expense of freedom.

“

Multiparty politics brought a more democratic choice between different powerful hands that would lead the future of the Serbian ship, as the national anthem itself says.

Historian Milan St. Protić challenges the idea that a personality cult is naturally characteristic of Serbs. He says King Alexander I Karađorđević was not especially popular among Serbs while alive, and that an aura formed around him only after his violent death. The genuine personality cult, Protić argues, was built during the Tito era, and Serbian society has still not fully escaped it.

Protić questions how far today’s young protesters have moved beyond that legacy. He says people who publicly champion democracy and multiparty politics can still stand beneath the image and legacy of Josip Broz Tito, whose regime represented the opposite of democracy. The student movement may be challenging the tradition, but the article leaves open whether it can break an influence that has lasted for decades across political camps.

“

The real personality cult was built during Titoism, and to this day we have not completely freed ourselves from that cult. God grant that these children have freed themselves from it.