Campaign has begun - this is openly acknowledged by the progressives and student movement - although it is not known whether the elections will actually take place this fall or not yet. The battle is already being waged with public opinion surveys and their interpretations.
"The regime parties did not lose their support so much as the students gathered anti-regime-oriented citizens, and those who were previously for opposition parties, as well as abstainers and undecideds," says the political scientist. Vujo Ilic in a big interview for the new issue of "Vremena", which arrives on Thursday (August 13).
"Society is almost completely polarized between the regime and the anti-regime bloc, and I don't believe that there are many who will switch to the other side at the last moment. Rather, it's about how much the parties in power can maintain control over their electorate and how many undecideds and abstainers the student list can reach," he adds.
It doesn't matter who's on the list.
According to Ilić, there is no longer a good timing for the elections for the regime, but it is not excluded that Aleksandar Vučić will still wait for the regular term, hoping for a change in the trend.
According to Ilić, the support for the Student List proved to be unusually tenacious. "As time goes by, my impression is that for a larger part of those citizens, that support is an expression of trust in the student movement and in the way it compiles the list," says Ilić.
That is why he does not expect that individual names from that list or the shitstorm to which the candidates are exposed will change anything. "Those who support the student list are not interested in what the pro-government media say. On the other hand, the support has not been conditioned on specific names so far, so it would be surprising if that becomes decisive now."
Photo: AP Photo / Darko VojinovićFront page of the new issue of "Vremena"
Research as an instrument
Ilić normally works for the organization The line that measured the convincing advantage of the Student List in relation to the government. Therefore, she was the target of attacks through the regime's media.
He says, at the same time, "appropriate" research is being marketed in order to tell the voters of the government that SNS and Vučić will still survive.
"As the elections approach, we can expect the gap between the survey results to widen, as was recently the case in Hungary, where after the elections it was found that agencies close to the government continuously underestimated Tisa and overestimated Fidesz."
_Read the entire interview in the new "Vremen" from Thursday (August 13) or use _huge August discount to subscribe to the digital edition!
