Serbian capital braces for a mega pro-president rally as tensions surge in the Balkan country

BELGRADE, Serbia — Chanting patriotic songs, thousands of supporters of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic gathered in downtown Belgrade on Friday, a day ahead of what authorities expect to be a huge rally in his support.

Belgrade was on edge, with authorities preparing for large crowds and potential counterdemonstrations in different parts of Serbia.

On Friday evening, protesting university students behind monthslong anti-corruption demonstrations started gathering for their rally on Saturday in the predominantly Bosniak Muslim southwestern town of Novi Pazar.

University students have been a key force in the nationwide movement triggered by a rail station canopy collapse that killed 16 people in the north of the country on Nov. 1 and which many blamed on rampant government graft.

Hundreds of students arrived to a cheerful welcome in Novi Pazar after walking or cycling for days, bridging an ethnic divide stemming from the wars in the 1990s that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation.

Vucic's rally in Belgrade is expected to be a significant moment in Serbia’s ongoing political crisis, apparently designed to counter student-led gatherings that have drawn hundreds of thousands of people, and help restore the ruling populists' control.

Vucic and his supporters unveiled a Serbian red blue and white flag which the state-run media said is the largest in the history of the Balkan state.

In the central part of the capital in front of the parliament building dozens of tents were erected to house Vucic’s supporters arriving from different parts of the country, as well as Serbs from neighboring Kosovo and Bosnia.

All-day concerts and barbecues are planned on Saturday in the rally zone. The area includes a park outside the presidential palace packed with plainclothes police and surrounded by dozens of tractors intended as a barricade against possible assault.

Vucic’s increasingly authoritarian government has stepped up a crackdown against critics and independent media while struggling to quell the protests against his firm rule in Serbia.

The president and his allies have claimed that unidentified Western intelligence services were behind the student-led protests with the aim to unseat him from power by staging a so-called “color revolution.” He has offered no evidence for such claims.

"Serbia has stood up against resistance against those who want to destroy Serbia and we will win,” Vucic said, adding that he expects much bigger crowds on Saturday.

Authorities have threatened legal action against university students and professors, journalists reporting from the protests and even state prosecutors who refuse to trigger court proceedings.

Vucic is a former extreme nationalist who now says he wants Serbia to join the European Union but has faced accusations of stifling democratic freedoms while maintaining close relations with Russia and China.