The course of the election campaign

Taking part in the campaign turned into a security risk. A total of 430 cases of negative campaigning, obstruction and violence were recorded in 66 municipalities and cities. The number of physical and verbal incidents (116) tripled from the first to the penultimate week of the campaign. Some cases of police conduct also raised the question of equal treatment of participants.

The authority of public office and the resources of institutions were put at the service of the authorities' campaign. Publicly funded works and services were presented as the achievement of the ruling party and of the leader of its list, Aleksandar Vučić. Public officials, with more than 1,500 recorded activities, were one of the main channels of party mobilisation. More than 650 recorded cases with elements of misuse of public resources and office, together with extraordinary one-off payments to citizens worth almost one billion euros made during the campaign, served to create an unfair advantage for the authorities over the opposition.

Citizens' economic and social dependence was used as a means of pressure and of control over voters' electoral will. In more than 250 cases, jobs, contracts, assistance and public services served as leverage for winning support, most often in public institutions and enterprises. In at least 44 cases, personal data were used without citizens' knowledge or consent.

United Serbia and the Student List were the most present on the ground, but with a marked disproportion in their activities and in the conditions of their campaigns. Together they accounted for 91% of the recorded activities of all lists. CRTA's observers recorded three times as many activities by “United Serbia” as by the Student List. As regards activities in which a possible breach or manipulation of the law was recorded, “United Serbia” was the actor in more than 700 cases, and all the other lists together in 32. The other lists were considerably less visible, despite stepping up their activities in October.

OCTOBER ESCALATION: obstruction of the campaign, attacks and intimidation

In the first 15 days of October alone, 185 cases of negative campaigning, obstruction and violence were recorded. The largest number was between 5 and 11 October (90)¹²⁹, of which 34 also involved violence. Niš, the Belgrade neighbourhood of Konjarnik, Čačak and Kraljevo stood out.

Niš became a hotspot of repeated incidents. After a torchlight procession by SNS supporters on 5 October, part of the ramparts of the Fortress was set alight¹³⁰. At the Narodno pozorište, alongside daily parallel stands, observers recorded the student stand being blocked from view, provocations and a protest march being followed, accompanied by pushing and jostling. On 9 October, five young men from the SNS stand attacked the underage son of the actor Aleksandar Marinković and demanded that he delete a recording. The public prosecutor ordered that a criminal complaint for a criminal offence be taken from the juvenile accused.¹³¹

Attacks also affected journalists and observers. In Bečej, an employee of a public utility company snatched the phone of a female journalist who was talking to passengers on a bus going to the Arena. In Kraljevo, a man struck a CRTA observer on the arm while trying to knock his phone out of his hand, and in Konjarnik an Insajder crew was threatened with having their camera smashed. In Zaječar, private security at an SNS rally dragged journalists and tried to snatch a camera, while a police inspector labelled them a “security risk”. In Niš, the journalist Aleksa Nikolić, a correspondent for Zoomer, was hit on the temple by a thrown object, and according to a recorded statement police officers refused to intervene.¹³²

Occupying space restricted the opponents' campaign. After Bratislav Gašić called on SNS members to occupy the centre of Kruševac at the time of a planned student public meeting, the meeting was moved.¹³³ In Kraljevo the mayor ran a stand next to the student one, and in Vrnjačka Banja the organised busing of people to a counter-rally was recorded. In Konjarnik, SNS supporters threw lighters at cars that were sounding their horns in support of the students, with no police intervention recorded.

Differences in police conduct raise the question of equal treatment.¹³⁴ In contrast to the absence of intervention in some incidents, in Zrenjanin the police used shields to push opposition actors back from the “Aleksandar Vučić - United Serbia” rally, arrested two activists and kept a group (including a CRTA observer) surrounded for around half an hour¹³⁵. In Belgrade, in Konjarnik, plain-clothes police officers checked the identity of participants after a peaceful citizens' assembly (zbor) and followed them.

Intimidation also reached into private space, while administrative and other obstacles further narrowed the possibility of campaigning freely. “Ustaše” was written on the doors of flats belonging to supporters of the Student List in Belgrade. Through the installation “Black Box - Blockaders' Serbia” (“Crna kutija - Blokaderska Srbija”), opponents of the authorities were linked to violence. In Požarevac a student billboard was removed, in Velika Plana a billboard was guarded at night by bikers, and in Valjevo a female municipal utility inspector prevented a stand from being set up. In Kraljevo and Užice, actors stated that venue owners were refusing to rent out halls for fear of the consequences.¹³⁶

Incidents directed against the authorities were recorded less often, among them graffiti on SNS premises in Kragujevac and the burning of a United Serbia banner in Belgrade. In some cases, conflicting versions of events limited the possibility of reliably establishing responsibility.