Serbia votes on Sunday

On Sunday, Serbia votes for a new Parliament. The governing SNS coalition, lead by president Aleksandar Vucic, is seeking to be re-elected. They obtained a narrow majority in the last election. SNS is a coalition of many different parties; some left-wing, and some right-wing; but they generally average out to being a conservative party with some liberal tendencies. 77% of the seats the coalition holds in Parliament is held by the Serbian Progressive Party (also known as SNS) which is pro-europe and national conservative. SNE's main enemy historically has been DS, a party in the Alliance for Serbia.

The Alliance for Serbia, or SZS, is boycotting the election. They are an alliance of anti-government parties that include member parties with views as diverse as Syndicalism - which some see as 'more marxist than marxism' - and anti-immigration national conservatism. 13 of their 24 seats are held by the Democratic Party, which is generally liberal in nature.

The parties that make up SZS took roughly 11% of the vote in the previous election, and, were polling at or around 11% prior to their announcement of a boycott. Polls at the time consistently had the governing SNS averaging around 50%-55%.

It should be noted that SNS governs with SPS (among others) and that SPS is polling around 10%. No other party has been able to regularly hit 5% in the polls snice 2018, though, PSG and SPAS have come close. It should be noted SPS is the former party of Milosevic.

In the end, none of that matters, as, it is clear SNS will win the election, by a wide margin. It is not for me to say if this is due to an unfair playing field, or due to actual popularity for the party. (But as someone who has seen unfair elections, it is likely a combination of both; SNS would win the election even with a fair playing field, with a significant plurality, and enough coalition partners to continue; but probably not with a majority of their own.) Regardless, the outcome is known in advance, and unless there's some totally unexpected result, I will not be commenting on the results themselves.