Demostat: Nearly a Third of Serbian Citizens Believe They are Worse Off Than Ten Years Ago

Srecko Mihailovic (BETAPHOTO/MEDIA CENTAR BELGRADE)

Almost one-third of Serbian citizens, 29 percent, believe that their lives today are worse than a decade ago, 47 percent say they haven’t changed and 24 percent that their lives have improved, a publishing and research center, Demostat, found in a survey presented on June 5.

Demostat’s chief researcher, the sociologist Srecko Mihailovic, said that the citizens were mostly critical of the performance of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Government of Serbia in individual areas, and were the least satisfied with their standard of living (48 percent of respondents), the fight against crime and corruption (46 percent), economy (35 percent), the Kosovo issue (33 percent) and Serbia’s accession to the European Union (32 percent).

The respondents were largely dissatisfied with the status of individual domains, especially the health-care sector (56 percent), judiciary (54 percent), the environment and economy (49 percent each) and education (44 percent).

When asked to give a general view of the situation in the country, 26 percent felt it was improving, 33 percent that it was getting worse, and 41 percent believed “Serbia has come to a standstill.”

Mihailovic said that 22 percent of respondent supported a good relationship with Russia, while 20 percent wanted to see firm ties with the European Union. As for their opinion on Serbia’s entry into the Union, 33 percent supported it, and as many were against it.

In terms of the media, 30 percent trusted pro-government televisions licensed to broadcast nationwide, namely, RTS, Pink, Happy and Prva. Eighteen percent trusted N1, Nova and some YuTube channels, whereas 23 percent preferred to be informed by portals and social networks.