OVER 50,000 people rallied in support of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Saturday in central Belgrade, following months of protests against him.

The demonstration, though not as large as the largest anti-government demos, illustrates how polarised Serbian politics has become. 

Protests exploded in response to the collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad that killed 16 people on November 1 last year. The collapse is widely blamed on corruption, with officials accused of cutting costs to embezzle public money.

Mr Vucic told crowds that the student-led protests had “inflicted huge evil on Serbia in the past five months… we will not allow those from outside and inside Serbia to destroy our state.”

With opposition demonstrators having called for assistance from the European Union, Mr Vucic’s supporters have accused them of attempting a foreign-directed “colour revolution” against his nationalist government. Serbs from Kosovo and Bosnia travelled to the rally, which was also addressed by video link by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.