2017 Serbian presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Serbia on 2 April 2017.^[1] Incumbent president Tomislav Nikolić was eligible to run for a second five-year term, but opted not to do so. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić was elected president in the first round.

2017 Serbian presidential election

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Candidate Aleksandar Vučić Saša Janković Party SNS Independent Alliance Serbia is Winning For Serbia Without Fear Popular vote 2,012,788 597,728 Percentage 56.01% 16.63%   Candidate Luka Maksimović Vuk Jeremić Party Independent Independent Alliance Beli – Just Strong We Have to Do Better Popular vote 344,498 206,676 Percentage 9.59% 5.75%

Election results by each municipality of Serbia:   Vučić   Janković   Stamatović   Election not held

President before election Tomislav Nikolić Independent Elected President Aleksandar Vučić SNS

The election was marred by accusations of voter intimidation and a near total domination of the Serbian media by Vučić and his party. Following the announcement of the results, protests were held across Serbia against Vučić's victory. The OSCE have announced that there are reports of pressure on employees of state and state-affiliated institutions to support Vučić and secure, in a cascade fashion, support from subordinate employees, family members, and friends.

The OSCE report noted that general reluctance of media to report critically on or to challenge the governing authorities significantly reduced the amount of impartial information available to voters,^[2] that all private national television channels displayed preferential treatment towards Vučić in their news programmes, and that public resources were used in support of Vučić, including endorsements and favourable articles in municipal information material.^[2] The European Commission stated in its Serbia 2018 report that the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media had failed to address imbalances in media coverage during the presidential campaign.^[3] The Associated Press and Reporters Without Borders reported that Aleksandar Vučić, the candidate of the governing coalition, had ten times more airtime on national broadcasters than all other candidates combined and that mainstream media under Vučić's control have been demonizing most of the opposition presidential candidates, without giving them the opportunity to respond.^[4][5] This practice was different compared to the previous elections, when the two main candidates had approximately the same media coverage.^[6] Non-governmental organizations involved in election observation, CRTA and Bureau for Social Research, emphasized that the presence of Aleksandar Vučić in newspaper and the electronic media during presidential campaign was disproportionate, adding that media have lost their critical role and that they have become a means of political propaganda.^[7][8]

Electoral system

The President of Serbia is elected for a five-year term using the two-round system.^[9] Incumbent President's term is scheduled to expire on 31 May.^[10]

Candidates

Serbia's Electoral Commission confirmed eleven candidates. Candidate numbers were decided using a random draw on 17 March.^[11]

#	Candidate		Party affiliation		Background	Signatures
1		Saša Janković		Independent	Former Serbian national Ombudsman (2007–2017); his first presidential nomination.	17,134[12]
2		Vuk Jeremić		Independent	Former Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007–2012) and former President of the United Nations General Assembly (2012–2013); his first presidential nomination.	14,360[13]
3		Miroslav Parović		NSP	President of the People's Freedom Movement; his first presidential nomination.	10.390[14]
4		Saša Radulović		DJB	President of the Enough is Enough party, former Minister of Economy (2013–2014); his first presidential nomination.	10,579[15]
5		Luka Maksimović		Independent	The leader of a parody party Sarmu probo nisi (SPN); his first presidential nomination.	12,270[16]
6		Aleksandar Vučić		SNS	Former Prime Minister of Serbia (2014–2017), former Minister of Information (1998–2000), and Minister of Defence (2012–2013); his first presidential nomination.	56,516[17]
7		Boško Obradović		Dveri	President of the Dveri party; his first presidential nomination.	11,212[18]
8		Vojislav Šešelj		SRS	Founder and president of the Serbian Radical Party; his sixth presidential nomination.	12,970[19]
9		Aleksandar Popović		DSS	Former Minister of Science and Environmental Protection (2004–2007) and Minister of Energy and Mining (2007–2008); his first presidential nomination.	10,504[20]
10		Milan Stamatović		Independent	President of Čajetina municipality since 2004; his first presidential nomination.	12,027[14]
11		Nenad Čanak		LSV	President of League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina; his first presidential nomination.	11,004[21]

Opinion polls

Date	Polling Firm	Vučić SNS*	Janković Ind.	Šešelj SRS	Jeremić Ind.	Obradović Dveri	Maksimović Ind.	Popović DSS	Stamatović Ind.	Parović NSP	Čanak LSV	Radulović DJB	Lead
Results		55.06	16.35	4.48	5.65	2.28	9.42	1.04	1.15	0.32	1.12	1.41	38.74
30 Mar	NSPM	52.8	12.1	7.4	9.4	3.0	8.6	1.3	0.7	0.4	1.3	3.0	40.7
30 Mar	Ipsos	54.3	12.8	6.5	6.8	3.2	9.5	–	–	–	1.1	1.8	41.5
29 Mar	Demostat Archived 2017-03-29 at the Wayback Machine	56.2	8.9	8.8	9.3	<3.0	9.5	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	46.7
25 Mar	Faktor Plus	53.3	15.1	5.5	8.6	2.8	7.5	<3.0	2.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	38.2
23 Mar	CeSID	53.0	14.0	10.0	12.0	–	5.0	–	–	–	–	–	39.0
22 Mar	Ninamedia	50.0	12.5	7.1	7.2	<5.0	11.9	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	<5.0	37.5
18 Mar	Ipsos	53.0	10.6	8.7	6.9	3.5	11.0	1.1	1.5	0.3	1.7	1.7	42.0
17 Mar	Demostat	57.0	11.0	8.0	9.0	3.0	3.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	<3.0	46.0
16 Mar	NSPM	54.9	10.8	7.0	11.1	3.3	7.9	0.9	0.7	0.4	1.0	2.1	43.8
7 Mar	Faktor Plus	53.1	14.5	11.0	11.1	3.9	–	–	2.0	–	<2.0	2.4	38.6
28 Feb	Ipsos	52.3	13.9	11.0	13.3	3.7	–	0.8	0.8	–	1.7	–	38.4

* Also nominating: SPS, SDPS, JS, PUPS, PS, SPO, PSS – BK, SVM

Voter demographics

A public opinion survey, carried out by CeSID showed that significant proportions of Vučić supporters, the candidate of the governing coalition, were composed of pensioners (41%) and that the vast majority (63%) held a secondary education degree, while 21% did not complete high school.^[22] The average age of his supporters was 55 years.^[22]

The second most popular candidate, Janković, had slightly more women among his potential voters, who were on average 45 years old. The vast majority of his supporters (59%) had completed higher education.^[22] In addition, he was supported by the majority of diaspora voters.^[23]

Conduct

Main article: 2017 Serbian protests

The election was marred by accusations of voter intimidation and a near total domination of the Serbian media by Vučić and his party.^[24][25] Following the announcement of the results, protests were held across Serbia against Vučić's victory.^[26] There were several issues. First, the electoral campaign was short only fulfilling minimal requirement of 30 days, despite the fact that these were regular elections. Also, until the last day it was unclear if there would be only parliamentary elections or parliamentary and City of Belgrade elections which hampered electoral strategies of opposition candidates. Furthermore, the governing majority made a decision to dissolve the parliament during the campaign, which was not justified and badly hurt visibility of opposition.

There were also a problems with imperfect electoral registers recorded which was similar as with previous elections. Controversy also arose regarding financing of electoral campaigns. Independent Investigative journalists reported that up to 6879 individual donors have provided Aleksandar Vučić's campaign with exactly 40.000 RSD each, which is near maximum amount and individual can contribute.^[25]

The OSCE have announced that there are reports of pressure on employees of state and state-affiliated institutions to support Vučić and secure, in a cascade fashion, support from subordinate employees, family members, and friends.^[2]

On 3 April 2017, the Republican Electoral Commission announced that the election results from two polling stations in Bačka Palanka and Zrenjanin would be annulled and followed by a repeat vote at those stations on 11 April. This was due to reports of electoral fraud.^[27] The following day, the election results were annulled in a further six municipalities, with re-runs also scheduled for 11 April.^[28] The repeat vote in the eight municipalities could not change the outcome of the elections, as there were only 9,851 voters who are eligible to vote,^[28] fewer than Vučić's margin of victory.

In Novi Pazar, where Vučić recorded 74.43% of the vote, Sead Biberović from the Novi Pazar-based NGO called "Urban-IN" claimed that there were "serious crimes committed at multiple polling stations," and that "some people went from station to station, where they threatened, used ransoms, and lied".^[29] Rešad Hodžić, who was Saša Janković's campaign representative in Novi Pazar, claimed that "30,000 lists were prepared in the trunks of cars circulating between polling places, in an attempt to be cast into the voting boxes."^[30] He said that the Janković campaign workers did as much as they could to stop electoral fraud, going on to say:

"In polling station #90, activists of the Party of Democratic Action of Sandžak gave poll workers 5,000 dinars each in order to submit 500 votes for Vučić, which they accepted. In the end, Vučić recorded 532 votes at that polling station. In Vranovina they offered 400 euros to submit 200 votes. For all of this we have witnesses and averments."^[30]

On 3 April, following the announcement of Vučić's victory, a student protest formed in front of the Serbian National Assembly, which, according to Danas, was attended by over 10,000 people.^[31] Protests after the election results were announced emerged in 15 cities throughout Serbia.^[32]

Media freedom

See also: Media freedom in Serbia

The Associated Press and Reporters Without Borders reported that Aleksandar Vučić, the candidate of the governing coalition, had ten times more airtime on national broadcasters than all other candidates combined and that mainstream media under Vučić's control have been demonizing most of the opposition presidential candidates, without giving them the opportunity to respond. This practice was different compared to the previous elections, when the two main candidates had approximately the same media coverage. Non-governmental organizations involved in election observation, CRTA and Bureau for Social Research, emphasized that the presence of Aleksandar Vučić in newspaper and the electronic media during presidential campaign was disproportionate, adding that media have lost their critical role and that they have become a means of political propaganda.

The OSCE report noted that general reluctance of media to report critically on or to challenge the governing authorities significantly reduced the amount of impartial information available to voters,^[2] that all private national television channels displayed preferential treatment towards Vučić in their news programmes, and that public resources were used in support of Vučić, including endorsements and favourable articles in municipal information material.^[2] The European Commission stated in its Serbia 2018 report that the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media had failed to address imbalances in media coverage during the presidential campaign.

One day before the beginning of the election silence, seven major newspapers covered their entire front pages with adverts for Vučić.^[4] Slaviša Lekić, president of the Independent Journalist Association of Serbia said "With this, Aleksandar Vučić clearly demonstrated that he can control over everything in this country."^[33] Vučić was the subject of criticism and satire for the appearance of a show on Happy TV in the last days of the campaign, with guests including his parents, in which he offered assistance in front of the camera to a man who allegedly fainted.^[34][35][36]

Results

As Vučić received more than 50% of the vote in the first round, no second round was held.

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Aleksandar Vučić	Serbian Progressive Party	2,012,788	56.01
	Saša Janković	Independent	597,728	16.63
	Luka Maksimović	Independent (Sarmu probo nisi)	344,498	9.59
	Vuk Jeremić	Independent	206,676	5.75
	Vojislav Šešelj	Serbian Radical Party	163,802	4.56
	Boško Obradović	Dveri	83,523	2.32
	Saša Radulović	Enough is Enough	51,651	1.44
	Milan Stamatović	Independent	42,193	1.17
	Nenad Čanak	League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina	41,070	1.14
	Aleksandar Popović	Democratic Party of Serbia	38,167	1.06
	Miroslav Parović	People's Freedom Movement	11,540	0.32
Total			3,593,636	100.00
Valid votes			3,593,636	98.35
Invalid/blank votes			60,378	1.65
Total votes			3,654,014	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			6,724,949	54.34
Source: OCSE

References

1. Serbia to hold presidential elections on April 2 B92, 28 February 2017
2. "Presidential election 2017, OSCE/ODIHR Election Assessment Mission Final Report". Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
3. "Serbia 2018 Report" (PDF). European Commission. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
4. "Major newspapers in Serbia hit stands with same front pages". Financial Times. 30 March 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
5. "Media Ownership Monitor Serbia". Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
6. "Parliamentary and early presidential election 2012, OSCE/ODIHR Election Assessment Mission Final Report". Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
7. CRTA observation mission Final report Presidential elections 2017 (PDF). CRTA. 2017. p. 24.
8. Gavrilović, Zoran; Mijatović, Marina; Pavlica, Dražen (2017). Mediji, izbori i javnost 2017 (PDF). Bureau for Social Research.
9. Serbia IFES
10. President-elect Vucic to remain PM for another two months B92, 3 April 2017
11. Izborni listići: Janković 1, Jeremić 2, Beli 5, Vučić 6 B92, 17 March 2017
12. "Девета седница Републичке изборне комисије". www.rik.parlament.gov.rs. 5 March 2017. Archived from the original on 13 April 2017. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
13. "RIK proglasila kandidaturu Vuka Jeremića". www.b92.net. 10 March 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2017.
14. "RIK proglasio kandidature Čanka, Stamatovića i Parovića, Beli nije na dnevnom redu".
15. "16. sednica RIK-a". Archived from the original on 13 April 2017. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
16. "Haos zbog Belog".
17. "Девета седница Републичке изборне комисије". www.rik.parlament.gov.rs. 5 March 2017. Archived from the original on 13 April 2017. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
18. "RIK: Proglašena kandidatura Boška Obradovića".
19. "RIK proglasio kandidaturu Vojislava Šešelja za predsednika". www.blic.rs. 6 March 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
20. "Proglašena kandidatura Aleksandra Popovića".
21. "RIK: Potvrđeni Stamatović, Parović i Čanak, Beli nije još". Archived from the original on 16 March 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
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26. Da Silva, Chantal (8 April 2017). "Serbian protesters accuse media of turning blind eye, as anti-corruption rallies continue". The Independent. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
27. Tanjug (4 April 2017). "Mondo: Poništeni izbori: Sumnjiv JMBG i višak listića" (in Serbian). Retrieved 4 April 2017.
28. Tanjug (4 April 2017). "Večernje Novosti: Ponovljanje izbora na osam biračkih mesta 11. aprila" (in Serbian).
29. A. Bajrović (3 April 2017). "Radio Sto Plus: Biberović: Rezultati ne pokazuju stvarno opredeljenje Novopazaraca" (in Serbian). Retrieved 4 April 2017.
30. N. Kočović (4 April 2017). "Radio Sto Plus: Hodžić: Totalna krađa, ni devedesetih nije bilo ovako" (in Serbian). Retrieved 4 April 2017.
31. "Danas: Više od 10.000 mladih protestuje protiv diktature" (in Serbian). 3 April 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
32. "Danas: Protesti protiv vlasti u 15 gradova Srbije" (in Serbian). 4 April 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
33. "Serbia: Media freedom worsening as Serbs take to the streets". Safe Journalists. 25 April 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
34. "DEČKO PONOVO PAO U NESVEST U ĆIRILICI DOK JE VUČIĆ PRIČAO: Srušio se odjednom, a evo ko mu je pomogao (VIDEO)". espreso.rs. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
35. "Vucic's victory leads Serbia towards autocracy". Kosovo.2. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
36. "In Macedonia and Serbia, Right-Wing Politicians Make Their Followers Swoon—Literally". Global Voices. Retrieved 8 January 2019.