(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Neither of the two men vying to become Serbia’s president has a clear edge in this Sunday’s run-off, according to a poll by CESID. 51.1 per cent of respondents would vote for incumbent Boris Tadic of the Democratic Party (DS), while 48.9 per cent would back Tomislav Nikolic of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

The first round of the presidential election took place on Jan. 20. Nikolic finished in first place with 39.99 per cent of the vote, followed by Tadic with 35.39 per cent. Since no candidate garnered more than 50 per cent of all cast ballots, a run-off was scheduled for Feb. 3.

The remnants of the Yugoslav Federation were transformed into Serbia and Montenegro in February 2003. Following the Balkan war, Kosovo was established as an independent part of Serbia under the protection of the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 2006, Montenegro became an independent state with full international and legal subjectivity.

Tadic won the 2004 Serbian presidential election, defeating Nikolic in the second round with 53.2 per cent of all cast ballots.

On Jan. 30, both candidates expressed opposing views regarding Serbia’s integration with Europe. Tadic—regarded as a pro-Western candidate—declared: "We are at the crossroads. We are faced with a stark choice: the European Union or isolation."

Nikolic, who advocates for closer ties with Russia instead of the West, criticized Tadic’s stance, saying that Serbia has "two roads, one which is open toward the Russian Federation, and the other which is thorny toward the European Union."

Polling Data

Which candidate would you vote for in the presidential election?

Source: Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID)
Methodology: Interviews with 1,573 Serb adults, excluding Kosovo, conducted from Jan. 24 to Jan. 28, 2007. Margin of error is 2 per cent.

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