Extended Incumbent’s Campaign
Nemanja Nenadić for CorD magazine
The outcome of the election and the acceptance of results by participants remain uncertain. Legitimacy can be threatened by the bribing or blackmailing of voters (with the provision of evidence that they voted in a certain way), but mostly by the passivity of the police in response to suspicions of such criminal activity. Whatever happens on election day, the freedom of decision-making, at least for some voters, has already been threatened indirectly – through the excessive use of public resources to promote government candidates.
Contrary to the ODIHR’s main 2023 recommendation, a series of laws were amended without the broad consent of stakeholders, and even without formal public discussions, because the proponent wasn’t the Government, but rather a member of parliament (Petrašinović, SNS). ODIHR noted the failings of those regulations, while the government didn’t even attempt to solve one of the main problems – pressure on voters.
That’s why, compared to 2023, election conditions are today better in a few ways and worse in many others. Back then, the government spent over 400 million euros of budget funds through schemes for the pre-election distribution of assistance to citizens, while now they will spend almost a billion. The “incumbent’s campaign” started before the elections were even scheduled (“at meetings between the president and citizens”) and will certainly continue – with “restrictions” from the amended Law on the Prevention of Corruption easily circumvented.
Finally, a legal spending limit per election campaign participant has been established, though at a much higher level (6 million euros) than in comparable countries.
Contrary to the ODIHR’s opinion, no punishment has been prescribed for violating this rule, nor do the sanctions for other types of violations of this law serve as a deterrent.
Even if laws have been improved, that means very little if their application has to be entrusted to biased or passive institutions. They have to date demonstrated a high degree of creativity in ignoring the violations of the ruling party, choosing to believe the statements of representatives rather than establishing all the facts. The bias of the repressive apparatus increased significantly during the protests, which led to the emergence of the main opposition list in these elections. That on occasion has had an almost comical character (e.g. announcements on the number of participants in public meetings), while on other occasions it has represented a serious security risk (e.g. the ignoring of masked individuals brandishing dangerous weapons in Belgrade’s Pionirski Park, 15/03/2025).
In my opinion, the EU was mistaken in deciding to see progress purely through changes to regulations or the establishment of institutions (the REM Council, the Electoral Roll Audit Commission). It would be more effective if the authorities’ determination to change disputable practices was also checked through the examples of the local elections of 2025 and 2026, as well as determining the readiness of the public prosecutor’s offices and the Agency to apply the rules by checking the way criminal charges were resolved and funding control was conducted in connection with the 2023 and 2026 elections.