ELECTIONS 26: The Final Stretch

Week #06

The campaign ended with scenes that had almost nothing in common. Independent media and opposition and pro-student feeds covered the student marches and the rally in Slavija, while only pro-government outlets covered the rallies held by the “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia” list. At the same time, attacks that had previously targeted only the opposition widened to include the media, election observers and civil society.

SHARE Foundation’s sixth week of monitoring the online information space during the election campaign covered 19–25 October, including election day. We collected 31,162 articles from 25 online media outlets. We analysed 157,581 posts from TikTok, Instagram and X, collected by the morning of 26 October and shown by the platforms’ algorithms in the feeds of ten simulated users. Based on their political leanings and the content they receive, we group these users and their feeds into four categories: pro-government, opposition, pro-student and undecided.

The Week at a Glance

In online media, the week was split between two campaigns. Pro-government outlets covered rallies by the “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia” list in Čačak, Niš and New Belgrade, while independent outlets covered student marches and the Students’ List closing rally in Slavija on 22 October. The targets of attacks widened to include N1, the European Parliament’s observation mission and civil society, alongside the opposition and students. The authorities sent two messages at once: that they alone could guarantee stability, and that the elections would be peaceful and fair.

On social media, Slavija shot up the list of the week’s most frequent words, and the call to attend the rally spread across every feed except the pro-government ones. In pro-government feeds, Slavija was mentioned mainly to dispute the size of the crowd. Anonymous accounts dropped out of the top ten most visible accounts in pro-government Instagram feeds, but that was not because they had stopped posting.

Nine cases involving digital rights and freedoms were recorded, ranging from spyware on the phone of the Rector of the University of Belgrade to rape and death threats against journalists.

Words That Defined the Week

In online media, the word “election” topped the list for the first time, ahead of Vučić. Election-related vocabulary surged: “voter” rose from 471st to 7th place, “electoral” from 134th to 10th, and “vote” from 573rd to 36th. “Protest” climbed from 97th to 38th place, alongside coverage of unrest in France.

On social media, “Slavija” rose from 137th to 13th place, “march” from 270th to 37th, “voting” from 123rd to 17th, and “queue” from 94th to 25th, referring to queues outside polling stations. “Victory” climbed from 23rd to 11th place, and “freedom” from 45th to 30th.

Media overview

The campaign’s final days in two scenes

Student marches set off on foot for Belgrade from Šabac, Zaječar, Gornji Milanovac and Novi Sad, and were welcomed outside the Rectorate on 21 October. The Students’ List held its closing rally in Slavija on 22 October, where Aleksandar Čupić sang “It smells like freedom” and the list’s candidates took a joint oath, pledging that their mandate belonged to the people. The Public Assembly Archive estimated that 150,000 people attended.

That same week, the “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia” list held rallies in Čačak, Niš and New Belgrade, where Vučić promised the largest pension increase yet next year.

SHARE Foundation’s analysis shows that the two campaigns were covered by two different groups of media. Nova, Danas, N1 and 021 wrote most about the marches and Slavija, while pro-government outlets published only a few stories, mostly short reports such as Tanjug’s announcement that the rally had taken place. Pro-government outlets published dozens of stories about the SNS rallies. The Students’ List appeared in their coverage through a narrative portraying Bojan Pajtić as the “leader of the blockaders and the power behind the throne”. Republika and Kurir ran the same headline, with photos said to show him “issuing orders”. Pajtić said his father had been attacked because he supports the students.

Attacks widen from the opposition to those who report and observe

On 19 October, N1’s editorial team announced that it would not interview Vučić as a representative of the list before the election. That evening, pro-government outlets described the decision as “Nazism”, “unadulterated fascism” and something “unseen since 1945”. At a rally in Čačak, Vučić said he was “the proudest man in the world that they had banned him”. N1 had also been targeted earlier, through a story about its “live humiliation” that Informer and Novosti published under the same headline.

The next target was the European Parliament’s observation mission. Ana Brnabić wrote to the European Parliament’s President, Roberta Metsola, claiming that the observers “have come to help the Students’ List”. Pink reported this as Brnabić having “floored the European Parliament”. The head of the delegation, Andreas Schieder, called it an unprecedented attack.

According to SHARE Foundation’s election monitoring data, the share of media outlets and journalists among the targets rose by 83% that week, while the share of civil society rose by 55%. Threats against journalists recorded during the same period, ranging from rape threats to death threats, were covered only by N1, Danas, Nova and Vreme.

The authorities’ two messages and Europe in flames

The authorities sent two messages. The first was aimed at mobilising voters: the “Aleksandar Vučić – United Serbia” list was presented as the only guarantee of stability, alongside the suggestion that Nataša Kandić supported the students: “The people support us; Kandić, Biserko and Ćorović support them.” The second message was intended to reassure and dominated the final three days: the caretaker prime minister said Serbia must get through 26 October peacefully; the Ministry of the Interior said it was taking measures to ensure the election process was safe; and Brnabić said she expected everyone to accept the results.

The only narrative that gained ground during the week was that protests cause disorder, alongside coverage of unrest in France. Informer quoted the claim that “Serbia would be burning like France if it weren’t for Vučić”, while Republika reported a warning about protests “that could set Europe on fire”.

Three messages from this week show how the government communicated. The caretaker finance minister claimed that MOL and Gazprom had signed an agreement on NIS; MOL said the same day that no change had taken place. A statement by SAJ commander Igor Žmirić that “nobody needs to lecture” the unit, in response to a comment by a former commander, appeared in ten media outlets on the same afternoon, 23 October. Pink and Novosti published the same headline, “Students’ List proposes an exchange rate of 300 dinars to the euro”, even though, as the articles themselves noted, the proposal had come from a blogger.

Messages From the Ruling Bloc

• Stability is guaranteed only by us. A vote for the list is presented as a defence against chaos and foreign influence, according to B92 and Telegraf.
• The opposition is under foreign influence. Novosti and Alo portray the Students’ List and the opposition as a threat to Kosovo and Republika Srpska.
• Support for people with disabilities and carers. Insajder and Informer report on payments and vehicle donations.
• Infrastructure delivered on schedule. Politika and N1 report on the Iriški Venac tunnel and sewerage systems in ten cities.
• Southern Serbia. B92 and Mondo carry a promise that twenty factories will open across five districts.
• Peaceful and fair elections. RIK announced more than 16,000 observers, while Brnabić urged people to accept the results, according to Alo.

Opposition messages

• Record support. Tihomir Stanić of the Students’ List said no other list had received anything like this level of support.
• The mandate belongs to the people. N1 and Danas reported that the Students’ List candidates took a joint oath against corruption and party patronage.
• The European path. At its closing convention in Novi Sad, European Serbia responded to the authorities’ anti-European campaign.

Other messages

• Belgrade stays. Police visited the homes of members of this organisation, searched one person’s home and seized electronic devices, according to N1 and Nova.

What Appeared in the Feed

Slavija in the feeds

The marches and Slavija were the main topic in pro-student feeds, from the first day of the “Victory calls from the west” march from Gornji Milanovac to Čupić singing at the rally (@stopdiktaturiofficial, TikTok, 22 October). Undecided feeds showed the marches being welcomed, including a kolo dance in Stara Pazova. Opposition feeds featured Srdanović’s message from Slavija that “the people will hold the mandates”.

In pro-government feeds, Slavija appeared almost exclusively in posts by anonymous political accounts disputing the size of the crowd. One claimed that “more people were in Novi Sad than in Slavija”; others calculated the crowd size based on the area of the squares.

N1 in pro-government feeds

The N1 decision reached pro-government feeds through the party and its officials. The SNS account shared Vučić’s statement from Čačak and Brnabić’s claim that Vučić was “the only person who can’t get 24 minutes on N1”. Miloš Vučević posted about the “so-called independent television”, while Milenko Jovanov said “N1 runs from Vučić like the devil from the cross”. On X, Kurir called the same event “an unprecedented example of Nazi repression”.

Who was speaking

On Instagram, Večernje novosti entered the ten most visible accounts in pro-government feeds, pushing out the account klipperdanijelizborne2. For the first time, anonymous accounts made up none of the top ten. The account did not stop posting, however: it appeared 86 times in the feed of one simulated user, a woman over 65 who supports the SNS, and remained active after the election.

Visual Content

Meta ads

The Students’ List was again the biggest advertiser by total spending in the final week, with ads calling people to the rally in Slavija and describing a country where the law is respected. Vučić’s ads urged people to “turn out and vote together, as a family”, while the Naprednjaci page used a paid ad to spread his claim from Niš that Nataša Kandić “supports the Students’ List”. The Freedom and Justice Party ran ads saying that anyone claiming European Serbia would fail to pass the threshold was working in Vučić’s favour. An ad by Nacionalni magazin attacked the Students’ List candidate’s appearance on RTS.

Digital rights and freedoms

On 19 October, SHARE Foundation announced that Vladan Đokić, Rector of the University of Belgrade, and Rade Bajić, a senior prosecutorial associate at the Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime, were new spyware targets. Citizen Lab confirmed that Đokić’s phone had been infected with Pegasus, while Bajić received an Apple threat notification about an attack using mercenary spyware. Independent media reported the news; no pro-government outlet did.

The wave of fake followers on Instagram continued to affect the accounts of the Beta news agency, Vreme, Radio 021 and Crta, as well as several activist accounts.

Personal data belonging to members of mobile election teams in Temerin, taken from a website that had previously published the data of more than 3,600 activists, was posted again on an Instagram page presenting itself as a local news outlet.

Predrag Azdejković, a member of the RTS Board of Directors, shared on X a billboard for the Students’ List that had been manipulated using AI tools.

A forged decision pardoning five people charged over the canopy collapse appeared on social media. The caretaker justice minister filed a criminal complaint against an unknown person as a result.

Journalists were threatened throughout the week. Nenad Kulačin, his wife and Marko Vidojković received rape threats on X. A comment threatening Radar journalists Vuk Cvijić and Milan Radonjić also mentioned their children. Željko Pantić received death threats after reporting from the Slavija rally. On election day, death threats were directed at the Radar newsroom and journalist Jelena Petković.

On election day, the Students’ List website became inaccessible, and students said it was under attack.

Election day

On election day, 25 October, pro-government media continued the authorities’ campaign until polling stations closed, including a story about an attack on Aleksandar Vučić’s mother. After 8 p.m., they published results favourable to the government list. This was followed by a cut to Vučić’s campaign headquarters, where he conceded defeat. Student accounts spent the day reporting on turnout, and every feed except the pro-government ones saw the “Serbia is free” message. We analysed election day and election night in detail in a separate report, “From Dusk Till Dawn”.

About the 2026 election monitoring

SHARE Foundation’s monitoring of the digital space during the 2026 election tracks online media coverage, the election campaign on social media, and violations of digital rights and freedoms. We publish weekly reviews throughout the campaign.

We monitor content from 25 online media outlets in Serbia and the feeds of ten simulated users on TikTok, Instagram and X. Feed groups are determined by the content users actually received that week, not by political positions assigned in advance, so the grouping may change from week to week.

Note on the use of AI tools: This report was prepared with the assistance of an AI chatbot for data processing and language editing. The authors and editors retain full responsibility for the research, analysis, findings and conclusions in the report.