National Assembly of Serbia
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
BELGRADE – Ipsos Strategic Marketing released its pre-election poll on Thursday evening, predicting that the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) will win 44.6% of the votes in the Sunday parliamentary election. The largest opposition coalition “Serbia Against Violence” is projected to win 23.6%.
In the press release, Ipsos stated that the poll was commissioned by the list “Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia Must Not Stop”.
Since the poll predicts the turnout of 56.4%, slightly lower than last year, SNS, according to Ipsos, is projected to win almost the exact same number of votes it won in 2022 (around 1,63 million).
“Serbia Against Violence”, meanwhile, would win slightly more than 850,000 votes, which would be an improvement compared to last year, when two lists composed of the more or less same parties jointly won about 700,000 votes.
Compared to the poll released by NSPM earlier this week, “Serbia Against Violence” has about 2% less in the Ipsos poll, while SNS has 5% more.
Ipsos finds that the junior coalition partner of SNS, Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), will win 8.7%, which would represent a drop compared to last year, when it won almost 12% of the votes.
Meanwhile, the biggest surprise of the election would be the list “WE – The Voice of the People” led by Dr. Branimir Nestorović, which Ipsos sees as being comfortably above the 3% threshold with 4.4% of the votes.
Nestorović rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as a member of the Government Crisis Staff. He was subsequently accused of downplaying the seriousness of the virus and then of promoting various conspiracy theories.
Nestorović enjoys high popularity on social media. He is not regarded as a serious opposition figure.
Two more list would enter the parliament, according to Ipsos – conservative NADA coalition, which would score a slightly lower result than in 2022, and the National Rally, which is projected to win only 3.2% of the votes.
If this turns out the be the result, it will be a disappointment for the National Rally members “Dveri” and “Zavetnici”, who last year won more than 7% of the votes running on two separate lists.
Three national minority lists would enter parliament, according to this poll. They are the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ), the coalition of the Party of Justice and Reconciliation and Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina, as well as the Party of Democratic Action of Sandžak.
The projection of the distribution of seats based on the Ipsos poll, carried out by SERBIA ELECTS, shows that SNS would once again fall short of winning the outright majority of 126, a stated goal of President Aleksandar Vučić. The party would win 122 seats, two more than last year.
“Serbia Against Violence”, meanwhile, would win 64 seats, which is 13 seats more than what the two lists, “United for the Victory of Serbia” and “We Must”, whose members mostly compose this coalition, won in 2022.
SPS would lose 8 seats, according to this projection, leaving the SNS-SPS coalition with a total of six seats fewer than last year. NADA coalition would drop 2 seats compared to last year.
“Dveri” and “Zavetnici” last year ran on separate lists and jointly won 20 seats. They would be the biggest losers of the election, dropping to only 8.
The accuracy of the polls in Serbia is often in doubt. Last year, the final poll carried out by Ipsos significantly overestimated the support of both the ruling SNS coalition. On the other hand, the poll underestimated the support of SPS and right-wing parties.
