Update
How CRTA will observe Election Day on 25 October
CRTA will observe Serbia’s 25 October elections at 500 sampled polling stations and use parall...
On 7 October 2026, SHARE Foundation published "Crta na meti", a case study of media reporting on CRTA between 1 September and 4 October 2026. The study is part of the Foundation's continuous monitoring of election-campaign coverage in 25 domestic online media outlets and on major social networks, and it recorded 130 texts that portray CRTA in a strongly negative context, mostly in tabloid media. Its central finding, however, concerns the content of these texts rather than their number: none of the 130 texts challenges, with arguments, the methodology that CRTA applies in its core work of observing elections. Instead of its methodology, the texts contest the real identity of the organization and its motives.
The report identifies several techniques used to that end. The first is reclassification of status: continuous insistence that CRTA is not an independent observer of the electoral process but a participant in it, and not a civil society organization but a political one. In this way, the report notes, CRTA is presented as an actor that, as an alleged active participant in the electoral contest, cannot provide an independent analysis of election results, the campaign or the electoral atmosphere.
The second is attribution of false affiliation. At the beginning of September, Students in blockade held a press conference on spyware infections of devices. A social media account then published the names of the speakers and described one of them, Ana Toskić Cvetinović, executive director of Partneri Srbija, as a member of CRTA, which she is not. The media repeated this and used it as an argument that CRTA is not objective and independent, but aligned with one side and close to the Student Movement.
The third and fourth techniques concern people and connections. Through biographical revision, the media attacked CRTA by presenting details from the biographies of people in its governing structures. Through chain-linking, each link is used as proof of the next without any being objectively proven: the media claimed ties between CRTA and the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, Dinko Gruhonjić and Verana Matić, and then used them as evidence that CRTA is part of a "colored revolution".
The fifth technique is preventive delegitimization: an attack aimed at a research finding that does not exist. The media presented assumptions about what CRTA will do, publish or announce on election day as facts or "discoveries". The report cites, among others, the statement of Aleksandar Vučić, former President of Serbia and lead candidate on the list "Aleksandar Vučić - Ujedinjena Srbija", of 28 September that CRTA would announce irregularities "at 4 or 5 pm" on election day.
The report also points to the role of content from social networks, sometimes from unknown or anonymous actors, which the media distribute and at the same time legitimize by treating it as evidence. A related technique is the assertion of claims without evidence. On 4 October, the media published an audio recording allegedly of a lawyer from CRTA's legal team, which almost literally confirms a sentence from a column published on B92 a month earlier, for which no evidence had been offered. The report states that it remains unclear how the media obtained the recording and whether it is authentic. From that day, the report observes, the targeting moved towards institutional pressure, with calls for the organization to be banned and for the arrest of the lawyer, the only person whose arrest is demanded anywhere in the corpus.
Furthermore, the report assesses that the uniform pattern and speed of publication suggest coordinated publishing of pre-prepared content, and places the campaign in a nine-phase model drawn from similar international cases. According to the report, three phases have been completed (challenging impartiality, reclassification of status, financial delegitimization), three are under way (personalization, preventive challenge of findings, criminalization), and three are expected: institutional action, an attack on the election-night findings and a legislative epilogue. It also notes that none of the 22 texts published on 4 October carried CRTA's response to the accusations.
Readers are encouraged to consult the full report (available in Serbian), which documents each technique with examples, the sources of the attacks and the timing of each wave of publication, as well as the annex listing all texts in the corpus.
Instead of its methodology, the texts contest the real identity of the organization and its motives.
The report identifies several techniques used to that end. The first is reclassification of status: continuous insistence that CRTA is not an independent observer of the electoral process but a participant in it, and not a civil society organization but a political one. In this way, the report notes, CRTA is presented as an actor that, as an alleged active participant in the electoral contest, cannot provide an independent analysis of election results, the campaign or the electoral atmosphere.
The second is attribution of false affiliation. At the beginning of September, Students in blockade held a press conference on spyware infections of devices. A social media account then published the names of the speakers and described one of them, Ana Toskić Cvetinović, executive director of Partneri Srbija, as a member of CRTA, which she is not. The media repeated this and used it as an argument that CRTA is not objective and independent, but aligned with one side and close to the Student Movement.
The third and fourth techniques concern people and connections. Through biographical revision, the media attacked CRTA by presenting details from the biographies of people in its governing structures. Through chain-linking, each link is used as proof of the next without any being objectively proven: the media claimed ties between CRTA and the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, Dinko Gruhonjić and Verana Matić, and then used them as evidence that CRTA is part of a "colored revolution".
The fifth technique is preventive delegitimization: an attack aimed at a research finding that does not exist. The media presented assumptions about what CRTA will do, publish or announce on election day as facts or "discoveries". The report cites, among others, the statement of Aleksandar Vučić, former President of Serbia and lead candidate on the list "Aleksandar Vučić - Ujedinjena Srbija", of 28 September that CRTA would announce irregularities "at 4 or 5 pm" on election day.
The report also points to the role of content from social networks, sometimes from unknown or anonymous actors, which the media distribute and at the same time legitimize by treating it as evidence. A related technique is the assertion of claims without evidence. On 4 October, the media published an audio recording allegedly of a lawyer from CRTA's legal team, which almost literally confirms a sentence from a column published on B92 a month earlier, for which no evidence had been offered. The report states that it remains unclear how the media obtained the recording and whether it is authentic. From that day, the report observes, the targeting moved towards institutional pressure, with calls for the organization to be banned and for the arrest of the lawyer, the only person whose arrest is demanded anywhere in the corpus.
Furthermore, the report assesses that the uniform pattern and speed of publication suggest coordinated publishing of pre-prepared content, and places the campaign in a nine-phase model drawn from similar international cases. According to the report, three phases have been completed (challenging impartiality, reclassification of status, financial delegitimization), three are under way (personalization, preventive challenge of findings, criminalization), and three are expected: institutional action, an attack on the election-night findings and a legislative epilogue. It also notes that none of the 22 texts published on 4 October carried CRTA's response to the accusations.
Readers are encouraged to consult the full report (available in Serbian), which documents each technique with examples, the sources of the attacks and the timing of each wave of publication, as well as the annex listing all texts in the corpus.
