That's How it Is in Serbia

When asked "which direction is our society heading in?" only 10 percent adult citizens answered "for the better!"

At the end of the millennium, 95 of the citizens of Serbia are dissatisfied with the international status of their country, 85 percent are dissatisfied with their own future and the future of their children, 67 are dissatisfied with their standard of living, and 60 percent are dissatisfied with the degree of honesty demonstrated by their fellow citizens and especially by the manners used by their fellow citizens.  These are the conditions noted by experts at the Center for Political and Public Opinion Research (CPIJM), part of the Institute for Social Sciences in Belgrade, in a recent opinion poll "Serbian Public Opinion - December 1999"

Sample

The opinion poll was conducted on a sample of 2039 adult citizens of Serbia, excluding Kosovo, and using an interview method in 102 randomly chosen communities.  25.4 percent (21 percent directly, without dithering) refused to participate.  The sample presents a cross section of the adult population of Serbia based on sex, age, nationality, education, profession, religious persuasion, employment and place of residence (city vs. country).  The opinion poll was conducted by an institution that is celebrating its 36th anniversary, an institution which was the first to begin public opinion research in Southeastern Europe and which always managed to predict election results with a fair degree of reliability (they were only "wrong" in predicting Milan Panic's election results, having predicted that he would enter the second round of the 1992 presidential race).
Their conclusion is that the Serbian electorate is pro- opposition oriented, but Serbian voters remain as unhappy with the opposition as they are with the parties in power.  (See Table 4: Voting Patterns 1997-1999.)

High Indecisiveness

The opinion poll results indicate a high degree of uncertainty as to whether the divided opposition is at all capable of winning an election.  Especially, were it to win, whether it would at all be able to agree upon a strategy for getting Yugoslav society out of its present crisis, much less to be able to carry out such a strategy.
41 percent of voters are undecided as to who they would vote for, with nine percent not willing to vote at all, while 11 percent are still unsure that they will give anyone their support.

The undecided, those who still don't know which party to give their support to, make up two fifths of the electorate and are likely the key to the results of the next election.  It could be said that this is the usual indecisiveness that is a part of every election, with CPIJM's election poll in June of 1998 having registered a marginally smaller percentage of undecided voters, smaller by only one percent.  Even though the pollsters have not suggested this, certain indicators suggest that the two thirds of the undecided voters are opposition supporters.

A number of undecided voters stated that they voted in the previous election, but were disappointed.  Of the total number of voters who voted for the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) in 1997, 42 percent stated that they do not intend to vote for this party again; with the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), 57 percent of their supporters in the last election do not intend to give them their support this time around; with the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), this figure is as high as 69 percent.  The trend among disappointed voters has been more toward the categories of undecided voters and voters who chose not to vote at all, than toward another political party.

Red-Black Coalition vs. Alliance for Changes Balance

If an election was held at the present moment the red- black coalition, comprising the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Serbian Radical Party and the Yugoslav Left (SPS, SRS, JUL) would get nearly the same number of votes at the Alliance for Changes (SZP).  Even though the rating of the ruling coalition is nearly half of what it was in the 1997 elections, they would presently get the greatest number of votes, 13 percent, while the SZP would get 12 percent; SPO would get 7 percent, while only 3 percent of voters would vote for the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS).

Voter Demographics

Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS)

In the 1997 election, Slobodan Milosevic's Left Coalition SPS-JUL-ND won 24 percent of votes, while in December of 1999, SPS only had 13 percent of votes.
Their voters include the elderly and people with very little education: 49.5 percent of the supporters of this party are over the age of 60; 59 percent of their supporters finished elementary school, while 32 percent completed highschool.  39.2 percent of those who vote for SPS are pensioners, while 10.6 are farmers...

Serbian Radical Party (SRS)

The loss in voter support for the SRS exceeds that suffered by SPS and JUL.  Still, CPJIM researchers point out that SRS voter support patterns are difficult to predict - the support for radicals varies depending on current conditions.  SRS supporters were instructed at certain moments to conceal their support for this party.  Still, researchers are confident in stating that the fact that the SRS entered into a coalition with SPS and the fact that the policies waged by the ruling party are such as they are, the SRS has considerably lost the support of its voters.

The majority of supporters of the Radicals are unemployed (22.2 percent), pensioners (20.8 percent), qualified workers (12 percent) and non-qualified workers (11.1 percent).
The age distribution among supporters of the Radicals is fairly even: 22.2 percent of their supporters are under the age of 29, and the same percentage (22.2) is between the ages of 50-59, while other age groups vary by only a percentage point.

52.8 percent of Radicals have completed eighth grade, while 40.3 graduated from highschool...

Alliance for Changes (SZP)

The SZP coalition did not exist at the time of the 1997 elections.  Her members boycotted the elections and are not registering an increase in electoral support.  It appears that this coalition had the peak of its support at the end of September and beginning of October of 1999, at the time of the second serious of protest marches and police actions against protesters.

SZP supporters have crossed over from the ranks of those who did not vote in 1997, which makes up for 32 percent of the electorate; from the ranks of those who did not wish to say who they voter for earlier, which makes another 31 percent (a percentage of this group did not actually vote, while a percentage is really trying to conceal who they voted for); while a third group of their supporters includes people who voted but are disappointed with the party they gave their support to, and are not concealing that disappointment - for instance, 21 percent voted for SPO.

There is room here for disparate interpretations which might show whether those supporters are former, "constant" SPO supporters, or are ones who "crossed over", given that a high number of supporters of the parties which boycotted the 1997 election did not actually withhold from voting, and did vote.  An even more interesting question is how many people there are who are hiding their allegiance, but who crossed over from the other side of the "red-black line".  Are these supporters the former supporters of the regime who now crossed over to the opposition, or are they "upstarts" who voted for the other side in the last election (for or against Seselj), and are now "coming back home."
It should be remembered here that there are disappointed voters who are hiding their choice among those who do not want to vote this time around, with this group most likely comprising disappointed supporters of the Socialists and the Radicals...  In earlier election polls, it was noted that few voters crossed over the red line between the regime and the democratic opposition parties, with the highest number of cross over supporters being between the Socialists and the Radicals.

The highest number of SZP supporters are professional people (15.4 percent), workers with secondary education (15.4 percent), pensioners (12.4 percent) and entrepreneurs (10 percent).  The majority of SZP supporters have secondary education (49 percent) and higher education (19.1 percent).

The SZP attracts younger people: 25.6 percent of their supporters are 29 years and younger; 29.2 percent are between 30 and 39...

Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO)

According to CPIJM research, the SPO had its lowest rating in June of 1998, when the election objectives from 1997 proved unrealistic (victory in parliamentary elections and victory by a presidential candidate), and when opposition supporters punished the attraction between the SPO and SPS and JUL over the forming of a federal government of "national unity."  In the 1999 opinion poll, SPO managed to regain three quarters of its election results in 1997.

The greatest number of SPO supporters are the unemployed (19.8 percent); students (12.5 percent); and pensioners (11 percent).  It could be said that the SPO attracts the youngest voters - 36.8 percent of SPO supporters are below the age of 29 years, with 21.3 percent of their supporters being between ages 30 and 39.
In terms of education levels, the highest number of their supporters have completed secondary school (42 percent) and elementary school (33 percent).

Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS)

DSS boycotted the 1997 elections, and in the June opinion poll its support was one third of what it is now in December.  The DSS have constant support of several percentage points.  The highest number of their supporters are professionals (28.8 percent), highly educated people (15.3 percent), pensioners (17.3 percent), qualified and highly qualified workers (13.5 percent), and the unemployed (11.5 percent).

DSS supporters are largely middle aged people, with their supporters being older on the average than SZP supporters: 28 percent of DSS supporters are between the ages of 30 and 39; 25 percent are between 40-49.  55 percent of their supporters have completed secondary school, while 19.2 percent have acquired higher education.

The Poor - The Backbone of the Government's Support

This x-ray analysis of the age groups and educational backgrounds of voters indicates that the parties in power enjoy the support of the larger segments of the population.  The Socialists and the Radicals are dominant among those who have elementary school education, and their only competitor in this fairly large group, as we will see, is SPO.  Around 18 percent of the population do not have any education or did not complete elementary school; 26 percent have completed elementary school (therefore the sum of these numbers amounts to 44 percent).

SPS is in competition with DSS, SPO and SZP for the support of those who completed secondary school.  17 percent of the electorate have completed professional secondary school, while 6 percent completed academic secondary education, with another 19 percent having completed other secondary schools (therefore there are 42 percent of those who finished some kind of secondary education).

Opposition parties dominate with those who have higher education, but this group is twice as small as either of the two previous groups.  4 percent of the population have higher education, while 10 percent have university education.

Looked according to professional background, the SPS enjoys the greatest support from pensioners and farmers, the SRS, from workers, even though the DSS enjoys fairly significant support from highly qualified workers - qualified and highly qualified make up 13.5 percent of DSS supporters, a party which could be called the party of "office people", with their competitor being the SZP.

The opposition parties have nearly completely crowded out the Socialists from among the younger generation of voters.  The Government is only getting some support from younger people through the Radicals, but the Socialists still continue to be on fairly safe ground with their reliance on the older generations, given their high numbers.  Around 22 percent of the population is under the age of 30; 18 percent is between the ages of 30 and 39; 18 percent is between the ages of 40 and 49; 19 percent is between the ages of 50 and 59, while 22 percent of the population is over the age of 60.

It should be noted that the younger voters are far less staunch than the older supporters of the regime, because the elderly are far more disciplined as far as participating in the election is concerned.

Early Elections

In an atmosphere in which the opposition is demanding an early election to be held in Serbia so that the present crisis might be ended, and while the government is talking about regularly scheduled elections, public opinion in Serbia is overwhelmingly in favor of an early election.  62 percent of the population favors early elections; 18 percent are undecided; 20 percent are against - mostly government supporters, although 44 percent of the supporters of the Radicals are also in favor of an early election.  96 percent of SPO supporters are in favor of an early election; 90 percent of SZP supporters are in favor of an early election; 79 percent of DSS supporters and 43 percent of the undecided are also in favor of an early election.  A little under half of the electorate (45 percent) believe that the opposition should participate in the election even if the government does not fulfill election conditions.

Most Popular Politician

50 percent of the population has a favorable opinion about Dragoslav Avramovic.  28 percent of those questioned also expressed the same opinion about the leader of the DSS, Vojislav Kostunica.  20 percent have a favorable opinion about the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, 18 percent about the leader of SPO, Vuk Draskovic, 13 percent about the President of the Democratic Party (DS), Zoran Djindjic, and 13 percent about the leader of the Radicals, Vojislav Seselj.

However, when asked which politician enjoys the greatest degree of confidence, which could mean "which politician would you vote for?", the greatest number of those questioned answered "on one" (37 percent); for others they respectively answered - Slobodan Milosevic (13 percent), Avramovic (11 percent), Draskovic (6 percent), Kostunica (5 percent), Seselj (3 percent) and Djinjdjic (2 percent).  Other politicians with minimal or negligible support attract the votes of five percent of voters, while 18 percent of those questioned are undecided.

A comparison of data about "favorable opinion" with the data about "greatest confidence" indicates broad but shallow support for opposition politicians - Slobodan Milosevic is "holding onto" two thirds of voters who have a positive opinion of him.  Avramovic is managing to hold onto a little more than one fifth of those who have a positive opinion of him, Draskovic is holding onto a third, Seselj onto a quarter, Kostunica onto a fifth, and Djindjic is holding onto a sixth of those who have a positive opinion of him.

By comparison with earlier opinion polls, Slobodan Milosevic's rating of confidence is dropping off.  In 1993, 27 percent of those questioned mentioned him as their favorite politician; in 1995, 31 percent expressed this opinion, in 1997, 19 percent, and in 1999, 13 percent.  Vojislav Kostunica and Vuk Draskovic have a stable confidence rating, with Kostunica's rating ranging between 4.4-4.5 percent, and Draskovic's between 5.3-5.6 percent.  Dragoslav Avramovic's confidence rating is on the rise: in 1993 he was not considered, in 1995 his confidence rating was less than 1 percent, in 1995, 5 percent, and in 1999, 11 percent.

Avramovic is a politician who would come up against the least amount of resistance - only 21 percent of those questioned expressed themselves negatively about him.  29 percent have a negative opinion of Kostunica, 56 percent have a negative opinion of Milosevic, 52 percent, of Draskovic, 57 percent, of Djindjic, and 64 percent have a negative opinion of Seselj.

Loss of Support

In a study entitled "Two Views of Legitimacy" (Belgrade, 1999), Zoran Dj. Slavujevic and Srecko Mihajlovic demonstrate a rise in open mistrust of and a fall in confidence for the most important institutions in society.  For instance, in 1997 the Serbian Government is enjoying a smaller degree of confidence than it did in 1993, when Yugoslav society was gripped by hyperinflation and general poverty.  Gaging the degree of support for its government, in 1996 Serbia was near the bottom of the list of countries in transition with respect to the support they gave their government, while in 1997 it was at the very bottom of that list.  A table which gages this looks like this, starting at the bottom: Bielorussia (the difference between the percentage of citizens who have confidence in their government and who do not have confidence in it is negative and amounts to -70 percent); this figure for Serbia in 1997 was -55 percent; for Ukraine, -47 percent; for Hungary, -39 percent.  In 1996, for Serbia that figure was -29 percent, together with Rumania, with -29 percent...  The citizens of Serbia do not consider their government to be a responsible and efficient executive authority: 38 percent believe that the government answers directly to Slobodan Milosevic; 10 percent think that it only answers to a handful of SPS officials; while 21 percent think that the government does not answer to anyone.  7 percent of those questioned view the government as executive authority that answers to parliament, while only 4 percent think that it acts responsibly toward the citizens of Serbia.
The authors of this study point to the paradox reflected in that the pro-regime parties are managing to hold onto power, that is to say the political system imposed by SPS, despite the fact that their support is constantly dropping off - from 40 percent electoral support in 1990, to 20 percent support in 1997.  This means that the electoral support for the political system and the parties in power had dropped by a half in that period, and that in 1997 it amounted to only one fifty of the electorate.

The latest CPJIM opinion poll indicates that since the Serbian parliamentary elections in 1997, the parties that make up the ruling coalition are steadily losing the support of the citizens of Serbia, while the support for SPS and JUL has been nearly cut in half.  (See Table 4: Voting Patterns 1997-1999.)

The CPJIM research also indicates that nearly 59 percent of the population believes that the bombing of Yugoslavia could have been avoided with wiser foreign policies.  Opposing opinion is only shared by the supporters of the ruling coalition - 82 percent of SPS supporters, and 74 percent of those who support the Radicals.  Results indicate that the majority of citizens of Serbia is oriented toward the West (43 percent), especially those voters who support the opposition.  The majority of supporters of SPS and the Radicals (64 and 60 percent, respectively) are in favor of an alliance with Russia and Bielorussia.

Only five percent of the population is satisfied with the international status of the Republic of Serbia, by comparison with 95 percent in 1996.  This dissatisfaction ranges between 96 and 100 percent among opposition supporters.  But 57 percent of SPS supporters are also dissatisfied with the international status of Serbia, while 85 percent of supporters of the Radicals expressed the same opinion.

The winter of our discontent.  Is this more powerful than Steinbeck?

Medijum's Rating

The opinion poll conducted by the Medijum Agency (Srbobran Brankovic) in the middle of December indicates that 29 percent of those questioned would vote for the ruling coalition in an election (21 percent would vote for SPS, 7 percent for SRS...).  Among the opposition parties, the Alliance for Changes has the best rating, with 17 percent of those questioned having said that they would vote for them.  12 percent would vote for the Serbian Renewal Movement.  According to Brankovic's poll, the Democratic Party of Serbia would get five percent, while coalition DAN would get four percent.  Five percent of those questioned would vote for other parties.  16 percent of those questioned by Brankovic are undecided, while 12 percent of those questioned by him do not wish to vote in the next election.

During 1999, Brankovic conducted several opinion polls and his observations indicate that the support curve for the ruling party was very high ruing the war, that it dropped off at the end of the war to a level where it would lose an election, but it rose to its peak in November because of the campaign of rebuilding the country, only to have dropped a little in December, when the campaign of mudslinging against the opposition was increased.

Kosovo

The greatest number of citizens of Serbia (34 percent) think that the best solution for Kosovo is a high degree of independence within Serbia.

24 percent of those questioned are in favor of dividing Kosovo into a Serbian and Albanian part, with this opinion being most prevalent among opposition supporters.
Of a total of 16 percent who are in favor of a return to the situation before the war, the highest number are supporters of the Radicals (46 percent) and of the Socialists (31 percent).

Seven percent support a confederation or a federation within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
One percent is in favor of Kosovo as an independent state.
Around 18 percent do not know what would be the best, long-term solution.

TABLE 1

Which direction is society heading in?

Serbia	1996	1997	1999
Upward	19	15	10
Downward	54	63	55
No opinion	27	22	35

 

TABLE 2

Expectations in year 2000?

	expect	don't expect
Political changes	21	47
Peace	20	46
Economic recovery	31	41
Rejoining international community	33	32
Continuing downfall	44	26
Montenegrin independence	35	21

 

("Serbian Public Opinion - December 1999", CPIJM)

TABLE 3

Politicians with the highest degree of confidence, 1993-1999.

	1993	1995	1997	1999
No one	29	32	29	37
Slobodan Milosevic	27	31	19	13
Dragoslav Avramovic	-	1	5	6
Vuk Draskovic	5	3	5	6
Vojislav Kostunica	4	4	4	5
Vojislav Seselj	3	4	6	3
Zoran Djindjic	3	2	7	2

In 1993 Dragoslav Avramovic was not considered, and had less than 1 percent support in 1993; other politicians not mentioned had respectively, 11, 8, 9 and 5 percent electoral support, while the undecided, respectively numbered 18, 16, 14 and 16 percent...  (Source: CPIJM opinion polls)

TABLE 4

Voting Patterns 1997-1999.

Elections	1997	June 1998	Dec. 1999
SPS-JUL	24	17	13
SRS	16	6	4
SZP	-	3	12
SPO	11	3	7
DSS	-	1	3
Other parties	4	4	2
Undecided	-	42	41
Did not vote	42	24	20

 

In 1997 the SZP did not exist, while its member parties boycotted that election; DSS boycotted the 1997 election; undecided voters only appear in public opinion polls; those who did not vote in June of 1998 and December of 1999 include those people who stated that they will not vote in an election, as well as those who were undecided as to whether they will vote or not.

(Sources: 1997 election results and CPIJM opinion polls from June 1998 and December 1999.)