CRTA: Roast Pigs and Pension Chief as Election Omens
Watchdog group CRTA has logged tented festivities under the Serbia Wins slogan and organised visits to pensioners as a clear signal of a pre-election campaign that began before any vote was called.
- CRTA recorded 4 tented festivities in May and at least 23 similar events in the first half of June.
- Pension fund director Relja Ognjenovic announced visits to 80 municipalities and outreach to 20,000 pensioners by year's end.
- The gatherings fly the Serbia Wins slogan and draw officials such as Ana Brnabic and Milos Vucevic.
The watchdog organisation CRTA has reported that two recurring patterns, tented festivities under the Serbia Wins slogan and organised visits to pensioners, are reliable omens of elections that have not yet been called. By its count, the campaign began before any date was formally set, which reshapes the arithmetic of the entire electoral cycle. In conversations with citizens, CRTA says, officials mention a vote in three, five or six months, even though no date has been announced.
The figures the group presents trace a clear upward curve. May saw four festivities, and the first half of June already brought at least 23 similar events, all organised by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The template is identical everywhere: white tents, screens with promotional content, and the presence of senior officials, among them Ana Brnabic and Milos Vucevic. CRTA also lists Bratislav Gasic, Darko Glisic and Nikola Selakovic as regular guests at these gatherings.
Why are pensioners at the centre of this calculation?
The answer lies in the electorate. Pensioners have traditionally been the ruling party’s most reliable voters, so it is no surprise that this group is the focus. Relja Ognjenovic, director of the Republican Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, announced visits to 80 municipalities and talks with 20,000 pensioners by the end of the year. CRTA warns that state assistance to pensioners is being presented at these meetings as a direct political success rather than as the fund’s legal obligation to its insured members.
The line between the institutional role of a public fund and party activity grows thin here. When the head of a state institution tours municipalities and courts a specific voter group, the question of who bears the cost and whose capacity is being used becomes hard to avoid. That is precisely the point CRTA underlines, arguing that public resources and a party message are intertwined in a way that can hardly be called accidental.
What does this mean for the electoral cycle?
If the campaign really runs for months before a vote is called, then the formal start of the electoral process loses much of its weight. The period in which rules on equal media access, campaign finance control and observer oversight apply only begins once an election is called, and everything that happens before that stays outside that framework. That is the heart of CRTA’s warning: in its assessment, the race is already under way, only without the rules that would make it fair.
The opposition typically responds to such findings with accusations of misusing public funds, while the ruling bloc frames it as routine communication with citizens and care for the elderly. A pensioners’ representative from Zajecar summed up the division of roles bluntly: we organise, SNS finances, we don’t get into the details, we sit, eat, drink and celebrate.
The arithmetic, then, has been set before the process was officially opened. The question that remains is whether a campaign that began without a date will ever fit within the deadlines the law prescribes, or whether the electoral cycle will once again start from an invisible line?
