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Enough is enough, it is the only opposition group in Serbia with significant support, according to a poll known to DW. Does DJB benefit from the story of the “hysteria pandemic” and the rejection of measures, masks and vaccines?
Pandemic, postponement of elections, boycott, short-lived alliances and tumultuous divisions: political observers call the end of the year a “distortion” when it comes to the opposition scene in Serbia. The term “volatility” is also mentioned: almost no attachment of voters to this or that opposition party, and frequent changes in the mood of the vote, he writes “Deutsche Welle”.
There are growing signs that the Enough is Enough (DJB) movement is better adapting to this mess. An unprecedented investigation known to DW shows that the movement led by former minister and deputy Sasa Radulovic may have 5.3 percent support.
Thus, the DJB is the only opposition group that researchers currently see above the previous census of five percent, while some other options are at the level of statistical error.
This is a representative survey conducted by Sprint Insight in early October for the needs of the Belgrade Security Policy Center. The research focused on other issues, so the percentages of support for political parties obtained were not published at that time.
Stable sentence, hesitation in opposition
Apart from stable support for the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (46.8 percent, not counting undeclared citizens), the Socialist Party of Serbia (11.5) and the Serbian Patriotic Alliance (6.4), and the aforementioned DJB (5.3), the crossing of the reduced threshold The Movement for the Reconstruction of the Kingdom of Serbia (3.7) and the Serbian Radical Party (3.6) could expect three percent.
Opposition groups that have broken spears around boycott or participation in elections are doing it wrong. It ranges from the Democratic Party of Serbia (2.9), through Dveri (2.3), the Freedom and Justice Party (2.2), the Free Citizens Movement (2.1), Let’s not drown in Belgrade (1.3), the Party Popular (1.1) to the Democratic Party (0.4) which is at the level of statistical error.
“The severe political volatility that exists throughout the year also affects the results we have obtained,” says political scientist Dusan Milenković of the Sprint Insight agency, which conducted the research. It highlights that the evaluation of support for small parties is also hampered by the possibility of error that exists in each survey.
However, during October, President Aleksandar Vučić, who regularly receives inquiries from the Ipsos agency, emphasized in a press conference that the DJB is seeing an increase in support.
“It was certainly influenced by the change in political strategy, the fact that DJB is now playing on the map of politically opportune issues,” Milenković tells DW. “A significant portion of the population is prone to anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories. DJB has completely focused its strategy on that, especially compared to just three or four years ago.”
The Enough is Enough movement did not want to respond to DW’s questions, despite, as they say, “the benefit that DJB would have from publishing information that DJB is currently the strongest opposition option.” They cite “previous experiences writing and working on their portal” as the reason for refusing to speak.
One turn of a move
Radulović presented his young movement to the Assembly in 2016 with the image of a former minister, a man who saw from the inside what was wrong with the system. The DJB attracted liberal urban voters, advocating a clean-hands policy and the fight against partocracy.
Today, Radulović and his associates insist that Vučić is a “German man” and that Berlin and Vienna “colonize the Balkans.” On a YouTube show in mid-November, Radulovic said he saw the possibility of Vucic slipping on the Kosovo issue or because of the alleged plan to settle one million migrants in Serbia.
After a series of splits – almost all the deputies of the last Assembly left the DJB with severe accusations against Sasa Radulovic’s “authoritarian” style and spending money from the budget for the movement’s work – the movement reached 2.39 percent. of the votes in the June elections.
Source: H1
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the DJB has demanded the abolition of all measures. A statement from the movement in October stated that “Serbia is heading towards economic collapse, huge growth in public debt and destruction of the national economy.” There is talk of a “hysteria pandemic” propagated by the World Health Organization, “its quasi-experts, global banks and corporations, all the global media and a large number of politicians.”
The same statement affirms that the coronavirus is no more deadly or contagious than seasonal flu, that masks do more harm than good, that the ban is “completely unnecessary” and that “there is no threat of overloading the health system.”
“Everyone is very quiet,” said the movement’s leader, Sasa Radulovic, on the alleged violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens of Serbia by the measures against the pandemic. Among those who are silent, Radulović, as a guest on the aforementioned YouTube program, included “elite”, “media”, “non-governmental organizations”, emphasizing that those words must be under the signs of complaints, but also “official opposition H1”.
Ride on a global trend
“It is true that DJB is not represented in the media,” says Milenković, “but absolutely this growth of them is related to the issue they are linked to.
In principle, the omnipresence of social media increased during the pandemic because people have more closed opportunities for physical contact. “
“I am also referring to the exchange of messages through Viber and WhatsApp, where people share content without risk of being publicly criticized. This is especially true for messages that have to do with alleged global conspiracies and the anti-vaccination movement,” added the political scientist.
At the same time, DJB officials do not stop spreading false or unverified news. In mid-November, President Branka Stamenković wrote on Twitter that it was reported on CNN that the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer “would have different vaccines for different markets,” specifying that she heard that on the First Move program.
However, something like that was not said on that show. It was an analysis of the logistics to transport the Pfizer vaccine at minus seventy degrees, which will not be possible in many countries around the world. A CNN correspondent said that is why vaccines from other manufacturers will be more practical for those countries. Numerous media have written about this problem, which the DJB describes as “globalist”.
But even unverified information seems to fall on fertile ground. According to a Sprint Insight survey from early October, the results of which were published in December by the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCSP), up to 34.3 percent of Serbian citizens do not believe or doubt that there really is a pandemic.
According to the BCSP, this is part of the “global trend that science and scientific research are under attack by populism and conspiracy theories.” To this must be added the official places in Serbia, which, at least at the beginning of the epidemic, sent messages that it was a harmless virus.
More than a third of potential voters who doubt the official crown narrative are apparently a solid niche that has opened up space for the DJB movement to grow.
“I think they completely lost the support of everyone who voted for them in 2014 and 2016, and they went to completely new target groups,” says Milenković.
While stressing that from one or two polls one cannot speak of a stable “electorate” behind the DJB, Milenković sees the first signs that the movement has recovered after the Copernican turn.
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