The Defense Ministry has invited offers for research into the ratings of Minister Aleksandar Vulin on the public procurement pages of its web site.

The invitation for offers specifies that the research should cover the period from April 5, 2020 to March 31, 2021. It does not specify the amount of money for the research. The ministry also invited offers for media monitoring. A statement said that the public procurement of those two things is done annually to gauge the the exposure of the minister and ministry in the public. “Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin did not request this procurement nor does it have anything to do with the personal ratings of the person in office,” it said.  

 Bojan Klacar, of the CeSID public opion research agency, told N1 that all the ministries have published similar public procurement notices without stressing the personal role of the ministers while Transparency Serbia’s Nemanja Nenadic said that the Defense Ministry notice unwittingly drew attention to the other ministries which made use of the fact that under the law they are not obliged to issue public notices for procurement worth less than half a million Dinars (1 Euro – 118 Dinars).