On Thursday, February 24, 2022, in Belgrade, a conference was held on the occasion of the announcement of the monitoring of the election campaign.
Miljana Pejić, Secretary General of KOMS, Milica Borjanić, Program Coordinator of KOMS and Maša Vračar, member of the KOMS Governing Board, have spoken on the conference. The manner in which the election campaign is monitored was presented: the monitoring methodology, as well as the dynamics that will follow this process.
How does KOMS pursue monitoring?
During the election campaign, more than 50 young people actively observed and monitored the election campaign. Young researchers, observers and the entire KOMS team will focus their work on data collection activities (from various sources – online editions of daily newspapers, information portals, television websites, official websites of election participants, social networks).
During this process, KOMS monitors the electoral lists (all political parties, movements and platforms within the electoral lists) and (future) presidential candidates.
We will follow direct party addresses, attitudes, promises, messages of politicians / candidates. We will record how politicians and election actors communicate about young people.
What are the elements of monitoring?
- Weekly reports – every Wednesday, sections of the monitoring results will be published on a weekly basis, based on which we will monitor the frequency and type of address to young people. It will also be analyzed how many young people are represented on the electoral lists and in which positions they are, and what is their position within the parties.
- Open letters – every week an open letter will be sent to political actors, in which priority topics for young people will be nominated, which will be in focus for the next 7 days.
- Final report – the entire process will be completed by publishing a final report on the basis of which we will report conclusions on the state of youth involvement and the election process and opportunities for its improvement.
KOMS has already sent the first open letter to all participants in the elections to provide us with data on young candidates, and after receiving these answers, we will publish data on the structure of young deputies. You can find the full letter here.
Miljana Pejić, Secretary General of the KOMS, presented the preliminary results of the monitoring for the period from 15 to 20 February on who addressed young people during the first week of the campaign; in what way; through which channels of communication and what was the character of those messages.
In this way, we want to affirm the participation of young people in the election process, but we also invite political actors to offer young people concrete measures and policies that will improve the position and needs of young people in Serbia. After the elections, we will monitor how many pre-election promises will be fulfilled.
The full report, which also includes data divided according to individual electoral lists, can be downloaded here.
You can watch the whole conference below: