Eurasia Press & News
During his long political career, depending on the political moment, he was called “Mali Sloba”, “sugar boy”, but the nickname that has remained with him to this day is “Koferče”. We are talking about Ivica Dačić, the leader of the Socialist Party of Serbia, the head of diplomacy and the first vice-president of the Government of Serbia.
The nickname “Suitcase” came as a result of the famous “Suitcase” affair, in which the socialist leader shone in 2006. That affair had all the elements of a political thriller: from the film’s plot, through the tense denouement, all the way to the Serbian epilogue, which like an eraser erased the situation in which a bag full of cash was being held in the hands of several state officials in a private apartment.
Namely, on January 11, 2006, Dacic and the then director of the SPS, Vladan Zagrađanin, met in the apartment of the then vice-governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Dejan Simić.
The police then literally burst in and arrested Simić together with Vladan Zagrađanin, Dačić’s godfather, on the charge that the bag found next to them contained a bribe in the amount of 100,000 euros, all in connection with the return of the license to operate Kreditno eksportna banka (KEB).
The crucial detail that Dačić left the apartment only 15 minutes earlier surfaced.
Simić and Zagrađanin were legally acquitted of bribery charges, and Dacić appeared as a witness in the proceedings.
At the trial, the witness Dacic said that his “impression was that Vladan Zagrađanin and Dejan Simić were victims, and that he was harmed”. He also defended himself in court by claiming that he stopped by a friend’s house for wine, and because of the invitation of the then Secretary General of the Government of Serbia, Dejan Mihajlov, he left the apartment. After everything, only a curse remained: I wish Dacic stopped by for a glass of wine.
Later, Dacic claimed that he would never go to other people’s apartments again, not even to a squat. And to every allusion to a suitcase, he later replied that due to bad experiences from the past, he doesn’t even carry a suitcase, let alone a suitcase.
In that year 2006, “Dacic was not wrapped up in the Kofer affair”, but continued to climb from one position to another unhindered, and by God to the point of being permanent, he also consolidated his position in the Socialist Party of Serbia.
After that baptism of fire with the “Kofer” affair, Dacic hardened, and from all subsequent affairs that followed, including the one with Miša Banan (Rodoljub Radulović), a member of Šarić’s criminal group, he emerged completely unscathed. Despite the fact that BiA filmed the then Minister of Police (Dacic) having lunch with a controversial businessman.
In addition to the nickname “Koferče”, Dacic had other nicknames in accordance with political periods.
“Since I entered politics, they call me little Sloba,” Dacic used to say. And he carried that nickname for a long time, because he was considered “Sloba’s right hand”.
He claimed that Serbia is a “small country with a big president”, as well as that “on our political scene there are many who call themselves politicians – there are three Vojislavs, two Vuks, but only one is Slobodan”.
He also praised his visionary policy and regretted “that by going to The Hague, Milosevic left us wandering like geese in the fog, but when he was elected as Milosevic’s successor, he also explained his nickname: “I am the new president of the SPS, and little Sloba ‘ they have been calling me ever since I entered politics”.
The public has long rumored that Dacic owes his success to his timely introduction to his first friend, Mirjana Marković, and that she gave him the nickname “sugar girl”, although he claimed that he had never heard her call him that.
This denial of his was not enough to prevent it from appearing in newspaper articles that “Mirjana Marković, when she liked him, called him sugar, and in the opposite circumstances, “fat boy”.
Whether he was called “šećerko”, “little Sloba” or “koferče”, Ivica Dačić managed to swim in all waters, be they cloudy or completely clear, and to successfully climb the ladder of power and, of course, to survive.
