Brnabic Attacks CRTA, BIRODI Cites Recommendation 22
Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic called CRTA's polling fake on X, and BIRODI replied that she is violating an ODIHR recommendation meant to protect election observers from pressure and intimidation.
Serbian National Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabic accused the nongovernmental organization CRTA of publishing false research, in a post on X on September 8. Informer picked up the story at 3:29 p.m., and B92 followed at 5 p.m. the same day. The Center for Social Research (BIRODI) responded the next morning, at 8:40 a.m. on September 9, with a statement tying Brnabic’s attack to a violation of Recommendation 22 from the ODIHR mission on protecting election observers.
The clash continues a story this outlet has covered before, involving a Faktor Plus poll that puts support for the Serbian Progressive Party at 47.2 percent, and a dispute over estimated turnout that BIRODI raised at the time. Brnabic has now raised the tone, moving from a methodological argument to a direct judgment of the organization’s work itself.
In her post on X, Brnabic wrote:
Tantalus’s torment for CRTA… What do these tormented people have to invent and babble now to eventually justify, after the election, their false research, over which some parties, not including the SNS, have already announced they will sue if it turns out again that it served to confuse and mislead the public. Now we have the unique concept of a ‘campaign before the campaign.’ The equivalent of BIRODI’s ‘Monte Carlo coefficient.’ Translation: when they have nothing to say, they make something up.
She added that she finds it curious that CRTA raises no objection to what she called the “student list” calling for votes and campaigning for over a year, even though no election had been called at the time. She also brought up university rector Djokic, saying that he too campaigns from his position and using university resources, while the only thing that bothers people about President Aleksandar Vucic, she said, is that he does his job.
What Does Recommendation 22 Require?
In its response, BIRODI recalled that the ODIHR’s final report on the 2023 parliamentary election found that pro-government actors discredited domestic and international observer organizations and individual observers after the vote. According to BIRODI, Recommendation 22 explicitly requires Serbian authorities to guarantee domestic and international observers unimpeded, timely access to election information, as well as conditions to work without pressure or intimidation.
BIRODI said Brnabic has done the opposite:
Instead of helping implement this recommendation as Speaker of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabic calls domestic observers people who invent things and babble, and brands their research as false.
The organization specifically disputed the term “Monte Carlo coefficient,” saying no such concept exists and that it has never used one. Monte Carlo, BIRODI explained, is a standard statistical simulation method that varies uncertain parameters within preset limits to model possible outcomes, producing a distribution of outcomes within the given assumptions. The organization says it has never presented that method as the sole basis of its analysis.
On the numbers, BIRODI calculates that the 47.2 percent support for the SNS in the Faktor Plus poll, combined with an estimated turnout of 52 to 53 percent of registered voters, yields roughly the same absolute vote count as the organization’s own analysis, between 1.6 and 1.65 million. BIRODI concludes that the two surveys, despite using different approaches, show that the SNS voter base has stabilized at approximately the same number of votes.
The organization called on Brnabic to stop discrediting domestic observers and researchers, to implement the ODIHR recommendation, to read the election forensics study it says it submitted to her more than a year ago, and to initiate publication of election results in machine readable format on election night. “Election forensics does not declare electoral theft,” BIRODI said, explaining that such analysis only identifies statistical risks that the competent institutions should then verify by reviewing polling station records and ballot materials.
BIRODI closed its statement by noting that this is not the first time Brnabic has described the work of domestic observers this way, saying she has previously called it inventing things and babbling. For now, it is not known whether the Assembly speaker will respond to the call to publish election results in machine readable format, or whether the dispute will remain confined to an exchange of statements.
