Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
Since September 13, when the election campaign for the 2025 local elections began, hibrid.info has identified, treated and evaluated eight polls published in six articles.
However, this phenomenon continues to appear on social networks, where new content of this type is published almost every day.
Since October 2, hibrid.info has discovered three other fake polls, which are claimed to have been conducted for the municipalities of Pristina, Gjilan, and Deçan.
On October 2, the Facebook page “News Flash” published a post, claiming to present a poll of candidates for mayor of Pristina. The content states that the candidate of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, Uran Ismaili, has won the highest percentage of support – 28%, compared to the other candidates. (see photo below)
After a research conducted by hibrid.info, it was found that there is no recently published survey that measures support for the candidates for mayor of Pristina. (see here)
This post does not specify which company conducted the survey, while the content does not contain any data on the time or period of the survey, which makes it unreliable.
Another case was found on October 3 on TikTok, where the account “gilan2026"published a video claiming to present a survey of candidates for mayor of Gjilan.
According to this post, the Vetëvendosje Movement candidate, Alban Hyseni, ranks first with 52% of support. (see photo below)
After fact-checking by hibrid.info, it was confirmed that no credible poll has been conducted for the candidates in this municipality. (see here)
As in the case of the survey for Pristina, there is a lack of transparency regarding the author of the survey, the time of its implementation, and the period of measurements, making this content unreliable and manipulated.
On October 5, the page "Decani+" on Facebook has published a post claiming that a survey has been conducted on the candidates for mayor of Deçan. Through this post, it is claimed that there will be a runoff between the candidate from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Bashkim Ramosaj (41.7%) and the candidate from the Democracy Initiative, Shkumbin Demaliaj (20.9%).
This site claims that 1,500 people participated in this survey and that it was conducted between September 20 and October 5.
What's wrong with this claim?
The "Deçani+" page does not indicate who conducted this survey, and another fact that makes this content suspicious is that this page, based on its posts, has not been active since July 18, only to return with posts on October 5.
Hibrid.info has searched Google with the keywords “Poll for the municipality of Deçan”, but the results do not show any recent polls conducted on the candidates for mayor of this municipality. (see here)
About surveys
A survey is a preliminary research to know a situation, opinions or attitudes about something specific. In this statistical method Results are drawn based on the study of a portion of the population, called a sample.
Based on the institute's article Pew Research (research institute for fact-based surveys and studies), it is clarified what information should be requested about how a survey was conducted.
Who conducted the survey and who sponsored it?
Who was interviewed?
How was the survey conducted?
How were people selected for the survey?
When was the survey conducted?
How many people were interviewed?
Was the survey weighted? If so, how?
Do the survey questions seem neutral and fair?
Analyze:
During October 2–5 alone, three cases of fake polls published on TikTok and Facebook were identified, which claimed to present polls for the municipalities of Pristina, Gjilan, and Deçan.
In the first case, the website “Lajme Flash” published a supposed poll for Pristina, which stated that PDK candidate Uran Ismaili was leading by 28%. However, there is no real measurement to support this claim and no data is provided about the company or the time of its completion.
The second case was found on TikTok, where the account “gilan2026” published a video claiming that VV candidate Alban Hyseni was leading with 52% in Gjilan. This poll also turned out to be unfounded, without a source and without information on the methodology.
In the third case, the page “Deçani+” published a post on October 5, claiming that its poll shows a runoff between Bashkim Ramosaj (41.7%) and Shkumbin Demaliaj (20.9%). The page does not indicate who conducted the poll, while its sudden activity after several months of silence makes the claim even more suspicious.
Google searches did not find any credible or recently published polls for these three municipalities, confirming that all cases constitute fake polls circulating online during the election campaign.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Fake News".
Reasoning:
The “Fake News” rating is given to informational content that is entirely fabricated or that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be defined as having been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.