BELGRADE -- Opponents and supporters of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic rallied at different locations on April 12 as tensions mounted in the Balkan nation, which has been hit by months of student-organized demonstrations against the Vucic-led government.
Vucic himself rallied supporters in the capital, Belgrade, announcing that he will form a new political movement in the face of a growing wave of protests that began in November following the collapse of a rail station overhang that killed 16 people in Novi Sad.
Protesters, led by student groups but joined by thousands of others, have blamed the rail station tragedy on corruption and poor oversight.
SEE ALSO: Serbia's Pedaling Protesters Take Anti-Corruption Campaign To EU ParliamentProtests over the accident have evolved into a broader movement opposing what demonstrators say is the crumbling rule of law and systemic corruption under Vucic, the president since 2017 and prime minister for three years before that.
Vucic insists that the protests -- which have developed into one of the biggest challenges to his long rule -- are threatening peace and stability in the country and accuses organizers of being paid by "foreign intelligence agencies."
Before thousands of supporters, Serbia's populist president said authorities must begin procedures "to restore order in the country" and that "full respect for the Constitution [must take place] to ensure the security of Serbia."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks to supporters in Belgrade on April 12.
Vucic said at the gathering that a "Movement for the People and the State" is required "because we need new energy and new strength, a new plan, not a plan until 2027, but until 2035."
He did provide specifics of the movement but said further rallies would be held.
Vucic once again called on students to return to the schools and said that "the colored revolution is over."
The authorities in Serbia have repeatedly called the student-led protests and blockades an attempt at a "colored revolution."
That's a term referring to public uprisings in places like Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan that led to the ouster of governments. The popular protests that paved the way for the ouster of Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 are also sometimes classified as a "color revolution."
Students and others protest with signs, music, and chants in Novi Pazar.
Journalists on the scene reported that many of the supporters attending the rally had been bused in from throughout the country as well as from Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which have large ethnic-Serbian minorities.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik -- wanted by central authorities in Sarajevo after being convicted of violating the Bosnian constitution -- appeared at the Belgrade rally, AFP reported.
Dodik, who is president of the ethnic-Serbian entity in Bosnia -- Republika Srpska -- addressed the crowd at the rally. Dodik is also under US and UK sanctions for actions Western governments say are aimed at the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia.
The Public Meeting Archive, a nongovernmental group that estimates crowd sizes, put the Belgrade gathering at 55,000 people. On March 15, the group estimated the crowd at a student-led, anti-governmental rally at 275,000 to 325,000 people.
SEE ALSO: Serbia's Vucic Says Government Gets 'The Message' After Biggest Protest In DecadesMeanwhile, the student-led protest took to the streets of Novi Pazar, some 300 kilometers south of the capital.
The protest is one in a series of demonstrations called for by students who have been blocking university faculties for more than four months, demanding government accountability for the deaths of the 16 people in the fall of the cement canopy in Novi Sad.
A group of students in the blockade walked for days from other cities to Novi Pazar to join the students there in the protest.
Novi Pazar University students blocked the roundabout at the exit from that city.
Buses with supporters of Vucic's ruling right-wing Serbian Progressive Party were scheduled to pass that way on their way to the Belgrade rallies. It was not immediately clear if the buses took alternate routes.