CRTA turns down RTS invitation to pre-election debate: ‘We are observers, not participants in the race’

BELGRADE – The Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) has refused an invitation from Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) to take part in a pre-election debate ahead of the Oct. 25 snap parliamentary elections, arguing that it is an observer and not a participant in the electoral race, as the Serbian daily Danas reported on Sept. 26.

In a reaction published on the social network X, CRTA writes: “CRTA does not fight for power, it has no pre-election program – only clear criteria by which it assesses the quality of elections. Pre-election debates serve to confront the programs of those seeking citizens’ votes – RTS should know this too.”

The watchdog organization assesses that the authorities and “their propaganda satellites” are trying to pin a hidden agenda on it, and that RTS’s “senseless idea” serves exactly that. The statement further says: “The invitation to our director Vukosava Crnjanski is strange, since CRTA has been mentioned on RTS only as a term in the quiz show ‘Slagalica.’ It is not strange as a new attempt to manipulate the public and distort the electoral process. The roles of different actors in elections are being deliberately confused. If RTS really wanted to invite us, it would have awaited our response before announcing the invitation publicly.”

According to CRTA’s media monitoring, RTS’s portrayal of pre-election Serbia is “extremely non-objective, unbalanced and confusing.” “This game of confusing roles suits this RTS behavior. We built our credibility without RTS. That’s how we’ll keep it,” the statement concludes.

Context: as RTS itself reports, the public broadcaster invited the “United Serbia – Aleksandar Vučić” list holder, President Aleksandar Vučić, and the head of the “Student List – Students Win,” Ilija Srdanović, to a debate as part of the snap-election campaign – as representatives of the two lists that, according to polls, are most likely to win mandates in parliament. RTS says it offered them the Tuesday, Sept. 29, 9:00 p.m. and Thursday, Oct. 1, 9:00 p.m. slots.