Serbia’s parliamentary session in Belgrade on Tuesday briefly turned violent after opposition MPs set off flares following a short brawl, leading to injuries. Speaker of Parliament Brnabić urged MPs to resume work.
Serbia’s first spring parliamentary session devolved into chaos in Belgrade on Tuesday after opposition MPs interrupted the increasingly heated discussion to set off flares and smoke grenades.
The incident, which prompted security to prevent a broader physical confrontation after some lawmakers got involved in a brawl, caused the session to be interrupted.
In the meantime, Speaker of Parliament Ana Brnabić invited the MPs to return to the benches and continue their work.
Prior to the incident, the lawmakers from the ruling coalition proposed to adopt a series of laws giving concessions to students and youth, and only then to acknowledge the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, which would effectively mark his cabinet’s collapse.
The opposition MPs vocally opposed the agenda, claiming it made no sense to adopt the laws coming from the government whose prime minister had resigned, setting off a brief fight in which Brnabić ended up getting drenched in water.
After the incident, Brnabić claimed one of the MPs, Jasmina Obradović, suffered a stroke as a consequence of the incident and that her life was in danger.
“The woman is fighting for her life after you threw a flashbang at her,” Brnabić told the MPs. Another MP, who is eight months pregnant, also suffered a shock, Brnabić said.
The opposition lawmakers have also used football fan-favorite plastic vuvuzela horns to disrupt the ongoing session.
Vučević resigned in late January following months of student-led protests over a deadly train station awning collapse last November that killed 15 people in the northern city and regional capital of Novi Sad.
“(The government) has to show … the highest level of responsibility,” he said in a public address on 28 January. “In order to not raise tensions in the society any further, I made the decision I just announced.”
Vučević and Brnabić both hail from the ruling SNS party of President Aleksandar Vučić, who has announced “an urgent and extensive reconstruction of the government” in response to the students’ demands.
Following the incident on Tuesday, protesters gathered in front of the parliamentary building in the Serbian capital and blocked one of Belgrade’s main avenues.
