Research public opinion in Serbia has always, but especially in the last year, entered the domain of magic or religion. Analysts, journalists and politicians in turn, they do not state the measured opinion of the public, but above all whether they "believe" in the research. And that "faith" is, as a rule, selective, depending on what suits whom.
In fact, when you cross what the court researchers from Faktor plus publish and what is published by, say, New Serbian Political Thought, Sprint Insight or Crta - whose leaders and researchers criticize the government openly - it becomes clear that someone is lying. And not a little. Because, when in one survey only 15 percent of citizens support student protests, and in another 70 percent, then there can be no question of a worse sample or a change in trend.
President Aleksandar Vučić did not like the latest research of the Line, who stated that it is not researchers, but "propagating violence and bad values".
"This is their last chance to try to get something fraudulently. They are trying to raise the optimism of those who would overthrow the government on the street," Vučić believes.
CONFUSED VUCIĆ FANS
A survey conducted in June by Crta and Stanford University's Democracy Action Lab (DAL) suggests not only that support for Vučić has declined, as it did for the Serbian Progressive Party, but also that the Student List - still non-existent because elections have not even been called - is struggling in the face of an absolute majority.
Six out of ten citizens are not satisfied with the state of democracy in Serbia, and also six out of ten advocate democracy. Among the supporters of SNS - and they are mostly present, the research confirms, only among pensioners and people over the age of eight - this is where a subtle schizophrenia is revealed. Only 38 percent of SNS voters state that, in principle, democracy is the most desirable form of government, but that's why even 92 percent believe that democracy in Serbia works well today. Two-thirds of citizens oppose the fact that the president goes beyond the scope of the law, but among SNS voters, as many as 78 percent think that this is justified.
The fact that the university is the institution with the highest trust of citizens (71 percent) and that it overtook the Serbian Orthodox Church (63) could be singled out as the real news from this research. True, among the answers offered, there was no army as one of the citizens' favorite institutions. Only 35 percent trust the President, still slightly more than the Government and the Parliament, while the rear is reserved for political parties in principle (19 percent).
Crta especially emphasizes the decline of trust in the institution of the president, inseparable from the man who has been on Andrić's wreath for nine years. Because in 2023, 60 percent of people had confidence, in April last year another 40 percent, and now it's Vučić's minimum. On the other hand, Prime Minister Đuro Matsut, who visited the relics of Bishop Nikolaj this week in the midst of some political events, does not have to worry that he is responsible for low trust in the Government. Because, according to the survey, as many as 47 percent of citizens do not even know who is at the head of the government.
TWO STRONG PLAYERS AND CHANGE
Furthermore, 59 percent of people support protests against the government, and 62 percent are "concerned" about the "use of force by the police against citizens" during protests. People see corruption as an acute problem, and mostly attribute it to the entire "political system".
However, Vučić was probably most upset by the fact that the Student List has the support of 44,9 percent of determined voters, while the Serbian Progressive Party has only 35,7.
Individual parties are being lined up, so it should be said that the research in this regard is theoretical - because it is unlikely that any of these parties will contest the elections on their own, and some have already "unconditionally" supported the student, but it is not clear whether those votes would also be transferred to the Student List.
The Socialists would be the only ones to pass the census (3,8), followed by Kreni-Permeni (2,8), the People's Movement of Serbia (2,2), We - Voice of the People (2), the New DSS (1,5), the Radicals (1,4), the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (1,3), the Movement of Free Citizens (1), the Party of Freedom and Justice (0,9), the Covenanters (0,9), the Democrats (0,8), the Green-Left Front and SRCE (0,4 each).
RESEARCH AS MUCH AS YOU WANT
It should be noted here that the opposition parties, thin on their own, have a total of ten percent of support. Also, that it is only about voters who have an opinion at all. According to the survey, 12,2 percent are still undecided, 9,2 percent will not vote, and 8,1 percent refuse to answer the question.
Miroslav Aleksić, the first man of the National Movement of Serbia, in an interview for this issue of "Vremena", warns about this. "It is a reservoir that must be reached. The point is not whether the NPS will have this much or that much, but that no opposition vote be wasted."
By the way, Aleksić says that they, as a party, order research. According to "Vremena", there are no more such, which are made only for the eyes of the customers. After all, today research can be conducted for tens of thousands of euros, and it will always have a methodological limitation. Only 24 percent of citizens wanted to answer the questions of the Line, even though they were face to face. This means that, in order to reach 2.324 respondents, they had to knock on ten thousand doors and, in a sense, Serbia remains a black box. It's not easy for interviewers either, even though times are financially tight.
By the way, Crta had an answer for Vučić. "The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, likes to read research, but he is not engaged in this business," said Vojislav Mihailović, a political scientist and director of research at Crta. "If our data were not correct and if things were really the other way around, we would have had early parliamentary elections a long time ago, because we know that the practice in the last ten years is that we had elections every year or two."
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