Confidence in the vote is slipping
Trust in the vote itself is eroding, and it frames everything else. A clear majority of citizens (55%) judge the March 2026 local elections in ten municipalities to have been not free and fair - 34% "not at all" - against just 34% who think they were.
This is not an isolated reading. Across a run of different elections the share calling them unfair has climbed: 41% doubted the fairness of hypothetical new elections in December 2024 (a near-even split at the time, with 43% expecting them to be fair), 50% judged the December 2023 parliamentary vote unfair, and now 55% say the same of the March 2026 local elections.
Because each of those questions refers to a different election, they are best read not as one trend line but as three separate readings of the same eroding confidence.
This is not an isolated reading. Across a run of different elections the share calling them unfair has climbed: 41% doubted the fairness of hypothetical new elections in December 2024 (a near-even split at the time, with 43% expecting them to be fair), 50% judged the December 2023 parliamentary vote unfair, and now 55% say the same of the March 2026 local elections.
Because each of those questions refers to a different election, they are best read not as one trend line but as three separate readings of the same eroding confidence.
Observers say the same
That public verdict is not perception alone. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in Resolution 2659 (2026), found those same March 2026 local elections "marred by violence and irregularities" - including accusations of vote buying, parallel voter lists and the photographing of ballots - and noted a deterioration in the campaign environment compared with 2022. Citizens' distrust, in short, tracks what international monitors have documented.
The decisive undecided third
Beneath that distrust the electorate has sorted into three blocs: supporters of the governing parties, supporters of the student list, and a group who are undecided (12%) or say they will not vote at all (9%). That disengaged third is the decisive unknown - a bloc that, despite widespread support for the protests and deep distrust of institutions, has not attached itself to any option. How it breaks, or whether it turns out at all, will decide the next election as much as the committed camps will.
Protest energy at the ballot box
Among the roughly 70% of the public who have made up their minds, the contest is genuinely open. If elections were held now, 44.9% of these decided voters would back the student list and 35.7% the Serbian Progressive Party, with the Socialists a distant third at 3.8% and no other party clearing the threshold on its own.
A movement that began outside party politics, in the streets and universities after Novi Sad, now leads the party-political field. So the same citizens who distrust the process are also organising within it, turning protest support into votes.
What these vote shares would mean for the make-up of the National Assembly can be modelled directly with CRTA's Mandator tool, which converts vote percentages into projected seats: how votes become seats in the Serbian parliament.
A movement that began outside party politics, in the streets and universities after Novi Sad, now leads the party-political field. So the same citizens who distrust the process are also organising within it, turning protest support into votes.
What these vote shares would mean for the make-up of the National Assembly can be modelled directly with CRTA's Mandator tool, which converts vote percentages into projected seats: how votes become seats in the Serbian parliament.
Change wanted, trust missing
A genuinely competitive contest and a widely distrusted process now sit side by side. Serbia has a public that wants change and, in the student list, has produced a credible vehicle for it - but a majority that doubts the contest is run on a level field, atop a legal framework that international bodies have repeatedly flagged as falling short.
The result is a democracy where the demand for change through elections is strong but the confidence that elections can deliver it is weak.
That gap means the legitimacy of any coming election is in question before it is held - and it raises the stakes on the conditions under which the next one takes place - and the importance of independent election observation, both domestic and international.
The result is a democracy where the demand for change through elections is strong but the confidence that elections can deliver it is weak.
That gap means the legitimacy of any coming election is in question before it is held - and it raises the stakes on the conditions under which the next one takes place - and the importance of independent election observation, both domestic and international.
Source: CRTA public opinion survey, conducted with the Democracy Action Lab (Stanford CDDRL); fieldwork by Pulse Research. Face-to-face (CAPI), n=2324, representative of the adult population of Serbia (excl. Kosovo), 10-24 June 2026, margin of error ±2.08%. Vote-intention figures are shown among decided voters (about 70% of the population). The fairness readings refer to different elections in each wave.
