Demostat: Citizens Apolitical, Awareness Grows that No Change is Possible without Parties though

Elections in Serbia (BetaPhoto/Dragan Gojic)

There is a high degree of anti-partism and apolitical disposition in Serbia, but the awareness has slightly increased of the fact that no significant change would take place without politicians and political parties, the Demostat research and publishing center found in a survey released on Aug. 9.

The center explained that the facts that the Serbia Against Violence protests had dissipated due to “summer holidays and bad weather” and that “the authorities have refused to meet almost all demands” voiced during the protests certainly contributed to the result. “It is difficult to say that the citizens of Serbia have matured in terms of political awareness without deeper and more extensive research, but as far as perfunctory impressions go, there is a mild increase in knowledge that without parties little can be done in politics, if anything,” says  Demostat’s chief researcher, Srecko Mihailovic.

Political parties in Serbia, opposition parties in particular, have not done enough to make the citizens aware that it’s precisely the parties that can lead to the change citizens want, Mihailovic said.

A large number of people abstaining from voting have been detected in 30 percent of the pro-European population, Vesna Pesic, a sociologist, has warned. “It is exactly the abstinence of those voter that makes the opposition weaker, because the citizens supporting the current authorities go to the polls,” the sociologist cautioned.