[ad_1]
The director of “Ipsos Strategic Marketing”, Marko Uljarevic, says in an interview for Kurir, summing up 2020, that the latest research shows that more than half of the citizens of Serbia believe that the country is on the right track. He explains that citizens positively evaluate the state’s efforts so far in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic. When it comes to politicians, citizens are the ones who trust President Aleksandar Vučić the most, while the SNS is the strongest party with more than 60 percent support. Aside from the SNS, only SPS, Spas, DJB, and perhaps SRS, DSS, and POKS would currently pass the census in the elections.
What does the research show when it comes to the direction the state is moving? Are you heading in the right direction?
– The direction of the country’s movement is an indicator that sublimates the vision of the citizens of Serbia about the context in which we all find ourselves. He is a herald of change or a strong defender of continuity, and based on this we can easily conclude what awaits us in the elections: change or continuity of the current government. In the latest public opinion poll from the end of 2020, despite all the misfortunes this year has brought us, up to 56 percent of Serbian citizens believe that the country is on the right track. Contrary to them, 30 percent believe that Serbia is on the wrong path and, apart from these two groups, we also have 14 percent of those who cannot decide whether Serbia is on the right or wrong path. Given all the challenges this year, it can be said that we have a high level of optimism among the citizens of Serbia.
What was the opinion of the people, say, in 2008, during the economic crisis, and what is it like today?
– For many years, it was characteristic of Serbia to have a higher percentage of people who negatively evaluate the direction of the country’s movement. More precisely, with some episodes that lasted only a month or two, we had such a situation until the beginning of 2013. By the way, each piece of information that speaks of the current moment has a special value if we follow it in time and compare it with some periods that were challenging for us. society as a whole. For example, just before the 2012 elections, in which there was a change, which followed the global economic crisis, up to 75 percent of Serbian citizens believed that Serbia was going in the wrong direction. When you have that context, citizens are expected to expect and want change. It was similar just before the 2000 elections. At that time, 70% of the citizens thought that Serbia was going the wrong way. Now, with only 30 percent of people negatively evaluating the direction of the Serbian movement, it is clear that the citizens of Serbia are closer to continuity than change and that they have confidence in the current government.
Has there been a change in perception of the problem? Economic problems used to be key, and what is the situation today?
– The same problems that used to plague the citizens of Serbia are still there, but their intensity is different, as well as the priorities. The crown changed everything. If we go back a moment, in February 2008, when Kosovo declared independence, then we had a record number of Serbian citizens who mentioned Kosovo as the biggest problem they were facing at the time. From that February 2008 until the introduction of the customs rates for goods from central Serbia at the end of 2018, which again brought the Kosovo problem to the fore, at least for a short period, we had a ten-year period in that people’s attention was predominantly occupied by personal financial problems. From the end of 2016 to February 2020, we also registered a decrease in the perception of unemployment, due to a large number of foreign direct investment and job creation, and in part a change in priorities, because in that period Kosovo became an increasingly important problem. However, since March of this year, the corona virus has been convincing in the first place. In this research that we present to you now, we do not offer our respondents a list of problems, but they themselves, spontaneously, express in their own words which are the problems that concern them most at the moment. Now, at the end of 2020, one in four citizens of Serbia (26 percent) spontaneously declares that the corona virus is the problem that bothers them the most. Only one in ten (nine percent) cite unemployment, six percent cite Kosovo, a standard as low (low wages) as the economy, while five percent cite health care as much as corruption. It is important to understand this change and to know what is behind these words and numbers. When people say that they are worried about the corona virus, which is the most important problem at the moment, they tell us that they are afraid. That they are afraid, for the children, for themselves, for those closest to them. They expect attention, that someone shows that they take care of themselves, that they undertake concrete things to overcome this period as quickly and easily as possible. All of this is best illustrated by the fact that 78% of Serbian citizens say that they are concerned that they or a close person may be infected with the corona virus.
Speaking of the crown, how do citizens view the state’s fight against the crown?
– The citizens of Serbia, despite all the campaigns directed against the seat of the crisis, the Government and President Vučić, are extremely positive about the efforts made so far in the fight against this epidemic. Most citizens rate the state’s performance in fighting the crown with a rating of 5 to 31 percent, with a rating of 4 to 22 percent. So a total of 53 percent positive. Furthermore, one in four citizens of Serbia, or 24 percent of them, evaluate them with a rating of 3, a rating of 2 only 12 percent, and a rating of 1 only 11 percent.
How do citizens view politicians in Serbia? Can it be said that there is a leadership crisis in the opposition since the same people have been present for years? Who is the most trustworthy person in Serbia? Vučić is known to be considered the most popular, and what are the others like?
– The key change compared to a previous period, let’s say before the change of government in 2012, is that we now have two clear groups that were not so obvious then. In that period, we had mixed, or at least most of them, opposition and politicians in power by audience ratings. The then opposition, which is now in power, had politicians with high audience ratings in its ranks. Now the situation is completely different, we have two groups, politicians with more positive ratings who come from the ranks of the government and a group of opposition politicians with lower ratings. If we analyze the evaluations of politicians, whether they are scales of four or five points, very often we can be wrong. More politicians are evaluated, it is more difficult to draw distinctive conclusions, but even looking at those evaluations, key trends and relationships can be seen. For me, however, it is a more illustrative indicator of trust in politicians, especially when we ask them to list just one, the one or the one they trust the most, without offering them a list of names.
In that indicator of confidence in the latest wave of public opinion this year, 40.2 percent of Serbian citizens spontaneously declare Aleksandar Vučić. The first to follow him is Ivica Dacic with 3.6 percent, followed by Ana Brnabic with 1.7 percent. The prime minister is followed by a series of seven politicians, each of whom has about one percent: Sasa Radulovic 1.2, Marinika Tepic 0.7, Vojislav Seselj 0.7, Milos Jovanovic 0.6, Aleksandar Sapic 0.6, Dragan Djilas 0, 6, Zoran Lutovac 0.5. All the other politicians add up to 8.7 percent, and none of them exceed 0.5 percent. One in three citizens of Serbia or, to be precise, 29.7 percent do not trust anyone and another 11.2 percent do not know or refuse to name the person they trust the most. If these percentages are converted into absolute numbers, assuming that we have 5.2 million adult voters present in Serbia, just under 2.1 million citizens of Serbia cite Aleksandar Vučić as the politician they trust the most. Ivica Dačić around 190,000, Sasa Radulović a little over 60,000 and Dragan Đilas a little over 30,000, while just over 1.5 million Serbian citizens trust no one.
What do the latest polls say about political party ratings?
– Due to the regrouping within the opposition, at this moment I can only speak about the ratings of the individual political parties, because we are leaving the coalitions for some future period, when they will be safer and clearer.
Currently, some 3.5 million citizens say they would vote in elections and know which party they would vote for if they all went to the polls separately, and not in coalitions. Of those 3.5 million, SNS would get 60.5 percent or about 2.1 million votes, SPS 8.7 percent, Enough was enough 3.7 percent, Spas Aleksandar Sapic with 3.6 percent , and next to them, SRS, DSS and POKS are also the census crossing zones. Of the other opposition parties, none independently exceeds two percent.
(Kurir.rs/Boban Karovic / Photo: Marina Lopicic)
delivery courier
Author: delivery courier
[ad_2]
