An intensive functionary campaign took precedence over the presentation of electoral lists

Transparency Serbia’s monitoring shows that the intensive official campaign on the eve of the June parliamentary elections overshadowed the presentation of the list of participants in the elections. Although it is an election for MPs, the media scene was dominated by the promotion of Aleksandar Vucic through paid advertising, guest appearances on TV shows, and his moderate presence in promotional events, which were highly well-placed in the media. There were also many promotional activities of other officials who did not miss the opportunity to mention Aleksandar Vučić. At the same time, local officials did not lack promotions.

The President, the Prime Minister (Brnabic), two Deputy Prime Ministers (Mihajlovic and Dacic) and three ministers (Vulin, Sarcevic and Djordjevic) had a total of 173 promotional events during the 50 days of the campaign (ending on 17 June), which is about 50% more than during the same period in 2019. It is worth reminding that in that period, the number of promotional events was extremely high due to the promotional tour of the President of Serbia – “Future of Serbia”, in which other public officials also participated.

In the entire election campaign, not counting the activities during the covid-related state of emergency “break” period, Brnabic and Vulin had 34 promotional activities each, Sarcevic and Djordjevic 25 each, Mihajlovic 22, Dacic17 and president Vucic 17.

However, promotional activities did not stop even during the state of emergency, when Vulin had an additional 52, Djordjevic 29, and Vucic 11.

Aleksandar Vucic was dominant on the front pages of the press (11 national and regional dailies). He has appeared 324 times since 6 March until today (including the state of the emergency period): 275 times in a positive context, 20 in a neutral context and 29 in a negative one. He was the central theme in a positive context 113 times.

Other officials of the ruling party (SNS) and the parties from the list led by Vucic had 99 appearances on the front pages, 92 in a positive context. In a negative context, Vucic and the SNS found themselves only on the front pages of the daily “Danas” (in the previous election cycle, the daily “Vesti” also showed a critical attitude).

The second in terms of the number of appearances is Dragan Djilas with 102, of which 90 in a negative context, of which 37 times as the main topic. Vuk Jeremic and Bosko Obradovic can boast of 54 covers, of which 41 were in a negative context.

Ivica Dacic and other officials from the SPS-JS coalition list found themselves on 49 front pages, of which 28 with positive, five neutral and 16 negative appearances.

The SNS advertising campaign was completely personified in Vucic. Although he is the president of Serbia, the 21 June elections are not presidential elections. Vucic, of course, is not on the SNS list, but one promotional video still says - “Vote for the man who works for our children - Aleksandar Vucic for our children”.

The President of Serbia’s participation in the functionary campaign has intensified in the last days before the election silence. Although the number of promotional events he plays a part in is lower than in the case of other officials, they are much more visible in the media.

On the other hand, all other officials – the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers, local officials, public enterprises leaders – most often thank Aleksandar Vucic in their speeches for everything achieved or started, for ideas and initiatives, thus closing the context set through election advertising.

At the same time, the campaign for local elections is being carried out through the functionary campaign of the highest officials because, in the company of state officials (members of the government, directors of national public companies), mayors and local officials participate in promotional activities.

A similar situation is for public enterprises: an illustrative example is the EPS acting director’s promotional activities with the mayors in the last ten days of the campaign.

In the pre-election segments, TV stations do not present the programmes of the electoral lists but let them present themselves through the submitted recorded material. It is noticeable that there was almost no representation of the ruling SNS party in those segments, or the local party committees’ activities were presented.

There was practically no need for presentation of SNS since in the central news on TV stations with a national frequency, reports about the activities of Vucic, who is the central figure of the SNS in the campaign at all election levels, and news about the activities of ministers occupy a significant part. In addition to reports about Vucic promotional activities, he also appears in information about other topics – through statements given during promotional activities on other current issues.

The following example testifies to the dominance of the functionary campaign in relation to the “equal representation of all participants” in special election segments: in one observed day, at the beginning of the campaign, in the central news programmes of five TV stations (RTS, Prva, Pink, N1 and Studio B), Aleksandar Vucic was present for 2580 seconds, in a total of 11 reports; Sarcevic 180, Ana Brnabic 105, Ivica Dacic 57. All other officials were represented in 1169 seconds, with the city and municipal officials given the most of that time in Studio B central news. On the other hand, the election segments lasted only 1253 seconds in all five main news.

An extreme case is TV Pink, where Vucic dominates in the first part of the leading news. The SNS does not appear in the following election segment, but then often comes a special report broadcasting a complete recording of Vucic speech at a promotional event that day. After that, another news segment follows featuring other government officials.

We emphasise that the data of the current cross-section of the situation are presented here for the national officials who were the most prominent during the campaign. We will present complete findings of our monitoring of the campaign of 30 officials (both at the national and local level), together with concrete examples of the functionary campaign and examples of violations of the law, data on reports submitted by Transparency Serbia, analysis of individual bodies’ activities, analysis of front pages and central news of the five TV stations, in the week after the election.