BIRN Serbia Starts Monitoring Election Campaign

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BIRN Serbia team has commenced a two-week monitoring exercise of the May 6 election campaign, with the aim of establishing an efficient and innovative tool for monitoring any future government’s performance and accountability.

This project is designed to tackle one of the most pressing issues of Serbian political life – lack of politicians’ accountability.

In anticipation of the outcomes of the 2012 general elections, BIRN Serbia is conducting comparative monitoring of political parties’ statements, actions and policies featured during the campaign along with analysis of political party programs.

This will provide a foundation for the future monitoring of the new government’s accountability and also solid evidence on which to judge politicians and political parties compliance with the promises given in the election.

Monitoring will focus on campaign messages related to four topics identified as crucial for the public: the economy and quality of life; corruption; health; education.

BIRN Serbia is working on this project in cooperation with the Center for Free Elections and Democracy, CESID, which has conducted analysis of the political parties’ programs and in-depth interviews with political parties’ representatives.

These analyses, along with analysis of the campaign messages conducted by BIRN Serbia, will be the main sources of information in creating the monitoring tool.

Final results of the monitoring will be presented on the occasion of the 100th day in office of the new government, an event that traditionally marks the first milestone in checking the performance of a new administration.