Officials Comment on Police Ties to Criminals Miloš Vučević has turned a simmering scandal into a blunt litmus test for Serbia’s police: choose the badge, or choose the underworld – but you can’t have both.

On May 19, the SNS president and presidential adviser for regional issues used a TV appearance to demand a much harsher legal “reckoning” with officers who moonlight for, or maintain ties with, criminal groups. Hours later, pro-government outlets amplified the same message in lockstep headlines: “Vučević: Sanction members of the police who have ties to criminals.”

Chronologically, Vučević first laid down the new line on discipline: the state, he said, must “enter into a tougher legal reckoning with police officers who provide security or have ties to members of criminal groups.” It should be obvious, he argued, that officers “in their free time do not provide security for members of criminal groups [and] do not secure nightclubs.”

The stick came next. Serbia, he insisted, must move to “clearer sanctions,” and anyone who thinks the police salary is too low should simply “not do that job” – but only after “returning what the state has invested in you.” The state pays, he reminded viewers, so that officers “guard public order and peace and citizens,” yet “there are irresponsible individuals.”

From there, Vučević broadened the frame. For 14 years, he claimed, SNS has been trying to ensure such abuses are not tolerated, “keeping things within the framework they must be, so that you protect others,” and is now ready to “examine in more detail the behavior of every individual.”

In classic pro-government style, the crackdown narrative folded seamlessly into loyalty politics: those who “hide behind Aleksandar Vučić” but then “do what they do, undermine Aleksandar Vučić and their own state” must be exposed and punished. Moral criticism, he added, will be heard only from citizens, not from the “arrogant” former rulers.

The result is a tightly controlled story: an anti-crime crusade framed as institutional self-cleansing, but narrated entirely from the ruling party’s side.