“These elections are neither fair nor being contested on a level playing field,” said Rasa Nedeljkov, Program Director of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA).
Oglas
“When we talk about freedom, the moment someone lacks the freedom to openly say who they support or oppose because they fear the repercussions, it speaks volumes about the level of oppression in our society. That is our current reality. This is not the first time we are participating in elections that look like this,” Nedeljkov said.
He noted that there is still no official, public confirmation regarding the identities of all the monitoring groups accredited for these elections.
“Unofficially, we know there are far more of them this time, and they are coming from quasi-monitoring groups – ‘phantom’ observation organizations, if I may put it that way. So, in that sense, we are seeing some new tactics. We no longer have observers solely from credible institutions like the OSCE, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and ODIHR. They are also coming from organizations that - once you get a chance to see their names - will clearly strike you as an absolute joke,” Nedeljkov said.
He emphasized that it is crucial to closely monitor “how these observers behave on election day.”
“On the other hand, looking at it from the perspective of credible monitors, it is a positive development that the upcoming election day will feature the largest ODIHR observation mission to date. There will be 300 international observers deployed directly by ODIHR, alongside observation missions from the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Additionally, the European Platform for Democratic Elections - a network of European monitoring organizations - is also present in Belgrade and across Serbia,” he noted.
Nedeljkov urged the public to turn out and vote in the October 25 snap parliamentary elections, adding that “it is vital that no one stays home.”
On the campaign trail
CRTA’s program director assessed that election day is unlikely to be much different from the campaign itself, which has been plagued by the same “core, deep-seated issues seen in previous election cycles, only this time they have been further intensified and stripped bare.”
“The entire campaign has been defined by several distinct phenomena. First is the political engineering, where numerous elements were tailored to suit the interests of the ruling parties, right down to the timing and choice of which elections are held when. At this very moment, we still do not know when the presidential elections will be scheduled, which is part of this calculation and manipulation designed to serve specific interests in a way that is, to say the very least, undemocratic,” Nedeljkovic said.
Turning to overseas voting, Nedeljkov highlighted it as an extreme example of influencing the election outcome. The government’s controversial measures include forcing polling stations worldwide to operate strictly on Serbia's local time zone - meaning some overseas voters will have to cast ballots during the night. Furthermore, by refusing to open polling stations in some cities, even in some countries, authorities have used their discretion to reassign voters to distant locations, effectively rendering voting practically impossible for many who had explicitly expressed a desire to cast their ballots.
“Therefore, this restriction of freedom is one of the most critical issues, not just for voters, but for all participants in the electoral process,” Nedeljkov concluded.
Teme