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Dokument #2029665
Freedom House (Autor)
| Democracy Percentage | 49.40 100 |
| Democracy Score | 3.96 7 |
By Miloš Damnjanović
The state of Serbia’s democratic institutions and freedoms continued to deteriorate in 2019, resulting in the country’s lowest democracy score in Nations in Transit since 2001. Although the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) came to power in 2012 in large part on the wings of its promise to energetically fight widespread corruption, it has failed to do so over the years. By 2019, high-level corruption had become more entrenched, with the country’s already fragile anticorruption institutions and policies further undermined.
The year was marked not so much by important individual events but by ongoing processes and trends. As 2018 drew to an end, one event set the scene for the start of 2019. In November, just before an opposition meeting in the town of Kruševac, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition Alliance for Serbia (SzS), Borko Stefanović was attacked and beaten, leaving him bloodied. In many ways, the attack was the last straw for government critics. Opposition leaders blamed Serbian president and SNS leader Aleksandar Vučić for creating a contentious climate in which violence against political opponents had moved from the verbal to the physical level. This visibly struck a chord with many ordinary citizens across the country, and spontaneous demonstrations against political violence broke out in the capital Belgrade just days after the attack. The protests continued to grow organically in the first months of 2019 and spread to dozens of towns across Serbia.
All of this brought into focus not just the general political climate in Serbia but also concerns over media freedom, political control, and the free and fair conduct of elections, among other issues. Protesters and opposition leaders quickly focused their requests on demanding a more even political playing field, in line with basic democratic norms, as a necessity for genuinely free and, particularly, fair elections. Crucially, both demonstrators and opposition politicians coalesced around the idea of conditioning their participation in democratic institutions—from parliament to elections—on these demands. In February, opposition groups launched a boycott of the parliament and also threatened to boycott the upcoming elections if demands were not met.
This development led to a radicalization of Serbia’s political climate. At the same time, it also focused much-needed attention on the country’s increasing slide towards authoritarianism. By making it clear they would no longer play the political game according to existing rules, opposition parties held out the threat that they would deprive a future SNS-led government of democratic legitimacy through their electoral boycott. The SNS initially rejected most of these demands, claiming the opposition’s problem was not the rules under which the political contest would be conducted but, rather, its lack of popularity among voters. Nevertheless, it was clear that the SNS did not want a complete opposition boycott of the parliamentary elections, due in 2020, primarily because this could jeopardize the ruling party’s external legitimacy.
While the opposition appealed to European Union (EU) representatives and Western governments to exercise their leverage over the Serbian government to create a more democratic political environment, the EU and other Western actors showed little appetite for getting seriously involved in a domestic political problem. In July, a dialogue was launched between ruling and opposition parties, mediated by the Serbian Open Society Fund and the Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences. However, finding the atmosphere less than constructive, the SzS quickly abandoned the dialogue. EU efforts to mediate the political standoff were stepped up in the fall but yielded little—as the year drew to a close, most opposition parties seemed set on boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections despite the determination of the SNS to co-opt smaller parties into taking part.
In terms of the overall quality of democracy and conditions under which electoral contests take place, one of the biggest problems facing Serbia is the deterioration of media freedoms. The majority of Serbia’s print and electronic media remain under control of the ruling SNS. At their worst, media such as TV Pink and the tabloid Informer serve as SNS propaganda outlets used to praise the ruling party and its leader, while demonizing critics and opponents. In less-extreme cases, such as the public broadcaster RTS or broadsheet Politika, they offer more subtle progovernment coverage coupled with extremely limited space for opposition activities. While critical voices, such as cable news channel N1 or the daily Danas, do exist, their reach is limited. Media outlets with wide reach offering anything close to balanced political coverage are extremely rare. In 2019, attacks and threats continued against journalists critical of the government.
Weak rule of law and widespread corruption remain among the biggest obstacles to good governance in Serbia and, increasingly, these conditions are holding back economic growth in the country. During its rise to power, the ruling SNS, and Aleksandar Vučić in particular, devoted much attention to their plans and efforts to roll back corruption and strengthen the rule of law. Seven years into the SNS’s rule, it is evident that successive governments dominated by the party have progressively pulled back from “talking the talk” of fighting corruption and strengthening the rule of law, and have done very little to “walk the walk” overall. In its latest report on the state of the rule of law in Serbia, finalized in November 2019, the European Commission noted that the process of adopting constitutional amendments aimed at improving judicial independence was on hold, while the current legal and constitutional framework had created the space for political influence over the judiciary. The Commission also assessed that there were serious delays in coordinating anticorruption policies and adopting key pieces of legislation aimed at rolling back corruption.
On a practical level, while there has been some small improvement in the number of investigations and prosecutions of low-level corruption, nothing has been done to rein in high-level corruption. With few investigations, let alone convictions, the problem of high-level corruption appears to be worsening. Scandals uncovered by journalists are routinely ignored by investigators, while ruling party officials and affiliated tabloids do their best to discredit the investigative journalists themselves. Just as worrying was the case of a whistleblower—Aleksandar Obradović, an employee of state armaments producer Krušik—who alerted the media to potential high-level corruption and was arrested in September for revealing company trade secrets. Meanwhile, officials dragged their feet in investigating the corruptive acts and contracts brought to light by Obradović.
Over the years, the pull of European Union accession has provided an anchor for a variety of reforms and positive changes not just in Serbia but across the region. Even as the process of EU enlargement has slowed and waned, the prospect of eventual membership was at least a check on authoritarian tendencies in the region. Following the October European Council meeting, where France vetoed opening accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania while French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that enlargement would be put on hold, there is a real risk that, going into 2020, even this important brake is removed in countries like Serbia. Either way, the upcoming 2020 elections seem more likely to push Serbia into an even deeper crisis of democracy than resolve any issues.
| Considers the democratic character of the governmental system; and the independence, effectiveness, and accountability of the legislative and executive branches. | 3.50 7.00 |
| Examines national executive and legislative elections, the electoral framework, the functioning of multiparty systems, and popular participation in the political process. | 4.50 7.00 |
| Assesses the organizational capacity and financial sustainability of the civic sector; the legal and political environment in which it operates; the functioning of trade unions; interest group participation in the policy process; and the threat posed by antidemocratic extremist groups. | 5.50 7.00 |
| Examines the current state of press freedom, including libel laws, harassment of journalists, and editorial independence; the operation of a financially viable and independent private press; and the functioning of the public media. | 3.25 7.00 |
| Considers the decentralization of power; the responsibilities, election, and capacity of local governmental bodies; and the transparency and accountability of local authorities. | 4.00 7.00 |
| Assesses constitutional and human rights protections, judicial independence, the status of ethnic minority rights, guarantees of equality before the law, treatment of suspects and prisoners, and compliance with judicial decisions. | 3.50 7.00 |
| Looks at public perceptions of corruption, the business interests of top policymakers, laws on financial disclosure and conflict of interest, and the efficacy of anticorruption initiatives. | 3.50 7.00 |
Author: Miloš Damnjanović
Miloš Damnjanović is a political analyst working and living in Belgrade. He holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Oxford, where he worked on post-1989 democratization in Serbia and Croatia.
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