“I’m ready to continue with my strike as long as it’s necessary for Serbia to become a normal country,” Tomislav Nikolic told reporters on Tuesday at a private Belgrade clinic where his health is being monitored.

Serbia’s Interior Minister Ivica Dacic, a leader in the ruling coalition, called for dialogue, warning of a possible “serious violation of political stability in Serbia” if something happened to Nikolic.

“I appeal for a solution and an agreement,” he said.

Nikolic is refusing both food and water and doctors have said his health is deteriorating. He started his fast Saturday after a protest rally when around 50,000 supporters demanded an early vote, over economic problems and alleged corruption.

Opponents said the hunger strike is hurting the Balkan state’s image. Serbia was treated as pariah by the international community during the 1990s rule of Slobodan Milosevic.

Nikolic “has managed to push Serbia politically back into stone age,” said Liberal party leader Cedomir Jovanovic.

Pro-Western authorities have rejected Nikolic’s demand for an early election, saying the vote will be called after the European Union rules this autumn on Serbia’s bid to become a candidate for entry.

EU officials have criticized Nikolic’s protest, saying the country needs to focus on political and economic reforms if it wants to join any time soon.

Nikolic, renowned in the past for his staunch anti-EU stand, was in Milosevic’s coalition government in the late 1990s.

He recently, however, said he now supports Serbia’s EU bid.