Duel in Belgrade

As this issue of VREME goes to press, Partner agency researchers are conducting a third poll commissioned by this magazine. The second of the three polls was conducted on October 9-13 in 99 local communities covering a total of 1082 people of voting age in Serbia without Kosovo. It showed that the Zajedno coalition’s ratings have risen to 31.1% while the SP-JUL-ND coalition got 22.5%. That result is surprising because it came when Zajedno leader Dragoslav Avramovic announced he was withdrawing from the race. The third poll will show whether those results are changing or not.

In the meantime, Belgrade tabloids Blic and Dnevni Telegraf conducted telephone polls of 200 people each. The Blic poll showed 15.5% would vote for the leftist coalition and 12% for Zajedno with another 39% undecided. Blic reduced the number of undecided voters to the "reasonable figure" of 25% and obtained results that showed 41.5% of the people polled would vote for the SPS-JUL-ND coalition while 21.5% would choose Zajedno. The Dnevni Telegraf poll showed a different result with Zajedno leading 43.6% over the leftist coalition which dropped to 22.4% and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) rising to 10.9%. Telephone polls of a small number of people obviously give different results and are not the most reliable way to predict election results.

Can the mood of the electorate at these elections be defined?

A poll by the Social Sciences Institute showed the depth of the crisis of the legitimacy of the political system and the wish for changes but it also showed that voters don’t know exactly what changes they want and Institute researchers admitted they couldn’t say how that accumulated dissatisfaction will reflect on the vote.

Darko Brocic, head of research, told VREME about the difficulties facing researchers in predicting how people who said they were undecided in polls will vote.

A glance at the structure of people who did not vote in 1993 reveals a similar mystery. Of all the people who told pollsters they did not vote in 1993, 40.6% said they won’t vote this time around either and another 23% said they would vote for Zajedno. When polled, 19% said they were still undecided and 9% said they would vote for the leftist coalition. That means that Zajedno might bring a certain number of non-voters back to the ballot box but that’s debatable since they form the part of the electorate that reflected a deep depression among voters in the period between elections. Those voters account for about a quarter of the potential Zajedno voters.

The next unknown are the next generation of new voters. Every third new voter opted for Zajedno and 10% for the leftist coalition but the seriousness of their decision can’t be judged right now. At present, every thirteenth Zajedno voter is a first timer.

All that means Zajedno depends on changes in the mood of the electorate in the finals of the campaign. It seems realistic to assume that the leftists will do better in the final run because of their control over the media. The leftist coalition dominates the media, especially the electronic media. When it took over the state media it also secured an advantage since 31.1% of the polled said their decisions were affected most by TV presentations; 7.4% admitted they were influenced by TV commercials. Posters influenced 2.9% of the electorate and the ruling party still has many more than the opposition. Parties that do not belong to the ruling coalition can count on the 15.6% of the voters who based their decision on party statements. The most important tool left to the opposition are rallies; 18% of the electorate base their decision on the impression they gain at election rallies.

What effect will the main political players have on the elections? Dragoslav Avramovic’s ratings dropped from 43.1% to 30.7% when he withdrew and his influence might not push Zajedno forward. The opposition coalition stayed together and slightly compensated that drawback. Slobodan Milosevic dropped slightly from 29 to 26.8%; Kostunica from 18% to 14%; Djindjic stayed where he is at 16.9%; Seselj rose from 13.9% to 15%; Mira Markovic dropped from 9.2% to 7.6%; Vuk Draskovic improved his personal ratings as he always does in the finals of the campaign from 7.9% to 10.9%.

One element that has to be taken into consideration are local conditions. There are at least three reasons to assume that local conditions could have a stronger influence than before. First, although these are federal elections, the parties in Serbia do not see the federation as a problem but conduct generalized campaigns to get voters to vote for or against them. Second, the division into a large number of small districts strengthens the influence of local financial and political figures. Third, elections at local level are happening at the same time as the federal elections and there’s a complicated power struggle underway both within the coalitions and between themselves. JUL is running without the SPS, the DSS without Zajedno and there’s no reliable way to predict an outcome. Also, the aspirations of small parties are not the same at the local and federal level.

Without getting into that complex game and all its details, Partner researchers asked people: Which party’s candidate would you vote for at local elections?"

JUL-SPS-ND candidates got 21.8%

Zajedno got 29.3%

The SRS got 7.7%

Other parties got 2.2%

In other words, the polls about local elections showed the same general tendency as at the federal level. That’s an indication that the balance of power between the two coalitions could be similar to the results of the 1993 elections with a slight advantage for Zajedno in the overall number of voters and a slight advantage for the leftist coalition because of the election system and monopoly over the media. The Socialists dropped slightly compared to 1993 but not seriously. Zajedno’s ratings are rising, the SRS is dropping along with other parties.

Partner’s October poll in electoral district 3 in New Belgrade showed slightly lower Zajedno ratings than in Belgrade as a whole (30.4%-35%). The leftists did better than in all of Belgrade (23%-16.4%) and the SRS did worse (6.7%-7.3%). Partner’s predictions after two polls in the district showed that 45% of voters in New Belgrade would vote for Zajedno, 36% for the leftist coalition, 14% for the SRS and 5% for other parties. That means the two coalitions would get two parliament seats each and the SRS one but that’s not certain since the vote for five seats could be decided by just a few hundred ballots. VREME simulations showed that Zajedno could get three seats in that district and the leftists two with the SRS coming close to winning one seat.

So how will the Serbian electorate vote on November 3?

The best and most realistic basis for a prediction are the 1993 republican elections in Serbia. The polls conducted to date show that Zajedno is improving since those results. The advantage could melt away on November 3 but polls to date show that Zajedno won’t score lower than DEPOS, the DS and DSS did in 1993. The leftist coalition is standing at about the figure that represented the SPS electoral power in 1993 which could mean that the two coalitions could continue campaigning for the 1997 Serbian republican elections after November 3. The Serbian political scene would get more serious and draw closer to a two party model in which every government has a strong opposition.

What About Undecided Voters?

One of the traits of all polls is a number of undecided voters. As a rule, the number of undecided voters is huge in periods between elections totaling over a third of the electorate. The closer the elections, the lower their number and that includes people who decided who to vote for at the last moment and others who don’t want to say who they’ll vote for. The two Partner polls showed the number of undecided voters stood at 13.1% in September and 16% in October. The non-typical rise in October was probably caused by Avramovic’s decision to withdraw from Zajedno.

The October poll showed that the undecided totaled one million voters. Further research showed that those people didn’t turn out in 1993 and probably won’t vote this time around. On the other hand, the undecided include more former SPS voters than former DEPOS, DS and DSS voters. That could mean that if they turn out on November 3, the leftist coalition could get more of the undecided vote than Zajedno. One of the unknowns is how the 15% of the undecided who voted for small parties will vote as well as the first time voters (just over 5% of the undecided).

All that shows that a fierce campaign is coming in the finals.

Darko Brocic, head of research