The polls are not recording many voters who opt for the so-called white tickets. I don’t expect this will influence the outcome of upcoming elections, says Ipsos Strategic Marketing Director Srdjan Bogosavljevic.
Can we expect any significant change in the situation until the elections?
In all previous elections, there has been a few percent of invalid ballots, or ballots on which no party has been selected, or ballots not completed properly. The studies in which I have the insight show that the campaign for “white tickets” can only have very limited influence and that it is likely to just slightly increase the number of invalid ballots.
Those who started the campaign say their aim is to show that nobody in the political scene deserves their vote. Can they succeed in it?
We are very far from the possibility that “white tickets” campaign brings the result that would give anyone the right to discuss the legitimacy of the elections. At least hundreds of thousands of voters need to opt for “white tickets” so that we could even talk of challenging the legitimacy of the elections. And this is not realistic.
Who can suffer the consequences and who can benefit from this campaign?
In this campaign, I don’t see anything other than the possible damage to traditionally pro-European parties – especially the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party, whose supporters are the biggest advocates of “white tickets”.
Does this mean that “white tickets” are directed against these two parties?
I wouldn’t say that it is the intention, but if anyone gets damaged, it will be primarily these two parties. Obviously this is not a campaign to boycott the elections, but the effort to send a message that none of the election race participants is good enough. The boycott will automatically disqualify the party that is refraining from the elections, and the campaign in question is essentially not aiming at the voters of one party, but at all voters. The fact that potential supporters are mostly present within these two parties could be called “collateral damage”.
What will happen to “white tickets” in practice, will they be included in the final election result and in which way?
The action won sympathies from those who are very disappointed and don’t see any decent option among the offered ones. However, “white tickets” will be counted as invalid and will affect the outcome the same way as any other invalid tickets – these votes get spread out according to D’Hondt system, not proportionally. Somehow they’re more inclined towards the strongest parties, especially SNS and DS. I personally think that the action has practically no influence because it will not affect the legality of the elections, and the required percentage that would question the legitimacy is not even visible, so I don’t see it as an appropriate response to the problems Serbia is facing.
Have any of election boycotts in Serbia ever been successful?
The most famous boycott was the one organized by the late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 1997. Although the turnout was reduced, DS did not achieve anything significant at that time, but it remained outside parliament. We are witnessing a lot of boycotts with “national signs”, especially of the Albanians and of Kosovo Serbs, as well as boycotts used for self-promotion of some less-known political figures.
We had one successful boycott. It was organized by DSS and G17 Plus in the presidential elections in 2003. The presidential candidate was Dragoljub Micunovic. The supporters of DSS and G17 Plus were more inclined to Micunovic then to the radical candidate Tomislav Nikolic. Had they voted, Micunovic might have won. However, no one was elected because only two and a half million people voted and it was less than 50 percent, which was the minimum required turnout at that time.