Six out of ten citizens of Serbia believe that democracy is the best political system, but the same number believe that democracy in Serbia does not function. Citizens, therefore, have not lost faith in democracy, they have lost confidence that the state functions democratically. This is shown by the latest public opinion research conducted in June 2026 by Crta and the Democracy Action Lab (DAL) of Stanford University.
The findings of the research published by CRTA indicate extremely pronounced differences in the attitudes of citizens depending on their political preferences, but also their sources of information. Those who get their information predominantly through pro-government media, including the public media service, have diametrically opposite views on democracy, corruption, and institutions from those who follow critically oriented media or get their information through social networks. Serbian society functions as two parallel realities – democracy as the best system of government is supported by 85 percent of supporters of the Student List and only 38 percent of SNS voters.
Among decided voters (70 percent), 44.9 percent of citizens would currently vote for the Student List, while 35.7 percent would vote for the Serbian Progressive Party, and 3.8 percent for the SPS. Other political actors individually do not cross the electoral threshold.
Two-thirds of citizens believe that the president and the Government must respect constitutional limitations regardless of the support they enjoy, and that presidential power without the supervision of the Assembly is unacceptable. However, when political preferences are taken into account, the results show that about 80 percent of the ruling party’s supporters consider power without supervision justified – compared to only two percent of those who are closer to the Student List.
Only about a third of citizens state that they have confidence in political institutions – 34 percent of citizens trust the Government, and 31 percent trust the Assembly. The citizens of Serbia are losing trust in institutions. Trust in the institution of the president of the state has almost halved in three years – in February 2023, 60 percent of citizens expressed trust in the president of the state, and today 35 percent do. In contrast to political institutions, state universities and the church are institutions that the majority of citizens trust. State universities are trusted by 71 percent of citizens, followed by the Serbian Orthodox Church with 64 percent.
Over half of Serbia’s citizens assess that corruption is an extremely serious problem. For the prevalence of corruption, 38 percent hold the entire political system responsible, and an additional 16 percent of citizens specifically hold the current government responsible. SNS voters attribute responsibility to the previous government and the Serbian mentality.
Protests launched after the collapse of the canopy have not lost support even after a year and a half. Support for the protests remains stable at around 60 percent, which has been the trend since April last year. Almost two-thirds of citizens (62 percent) are concerned about the use of police force against protest participants.
In the context of the expected early parliamentary elections, support for the protests spills over into potential votes for the Student List. However, the share of citizens who, despite widespread support for the protests, distrust of state institutions, and dissatisfaction with the state of the country, remain politically undecided (12 percent) or point out that they will not vote (9 percent) is not negligible.
The research was conducted from June 10 to 24, 2026, using the face-to-face method on a representative sample of 2,324 adult citizens of Serbia.
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Source: Nova.rs; Photo: ATA Images