Crta’s Program Director speech in front of the members of  the Bundestag EU Affairs Committee

Read the full speech of Rasa Nedeljkov, Crta Program Director and Chief of the Crta’s Election Observation Mission in front of the members of  the Bundestag EU Affairs Committee.

Respective Chair, respective members of the Committee,

Once again, elections in Serbia were not conducted as a mechanism for potential change, but as a showcase of the ruling party’s unfair advantages, derived from systemic abuse of state institutions and law, and of complete lack of possibility for elections to produce any change. We find ourselves in a situation to start believing that if elections could change anything, they would have already been prohibited. 

After profound analysis, a very conservative CRTA’s estimate based only on limited data and resources is that the inaccuracy of the voter register counts for at least 30.000 voters. We have come to the firm evidence that the inaccuracy was used for performing illegal and illegitimate electoral engineering to impact elections’ results, actually to reshape voters’ will. People were being transported from all over Serbia and abroad (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) to vote in municipal Belgrade elections, on the grounds of their false residences in the capital, so as to alter election outcomes in favour of the ruling party. Also, many of those people were bribed – given money – to do so, or pressured, as if elections are a sort of shady business.  

Political pressures against citizens intensified to that level that, amongst tens of citizens who shared their experiences of oppression with us, there was a woman, an oncological patient, who was waiting for surgery that could save her life – she was asked to do favours for the party, so in return, the date of her surgery might be scheduled sooner. 

Such practices are in place because of the undue influence eroding institutional integrity and a years-long culture of impunity.

ODIHR has evaluated implementation of its 85 recommendations delivered to Serbia in a ten-year period. Only four priority recommendations are fully implemented – all related to election administration transparency – an important topic but not resolving any of the burning issues to which ODIHR consistently points: pressures against voters, abuse of public resources and office, corruption, unethical media reporting, erased line between the state and the party, voter registry inaccuracy.

The Government’s actions so far were cherry-picked to create an illusion of reforms before the international community, while avoiding to produce substantial change in public interest.

Law violations are more frequent and ruthless from one election to another. For example, half of electoral candidates for Belgrade elections forged citizen signatures needed for candidacy. There is not a single court epilogue of the same cases from the past – in 2016 more than 15,000 citizen signatures were forged, and none was charged. Today, the prosecution even rejects their duty to prosecute criminal offences in elections.

Independent oversight institutions are utterly passive, demonstrating that they were subjected to political control. Any law change that was presented as a step forward, especially media laws, failed to provide a single result. 

In fact,  inequality worsened as the incumbents gained 75% of the media time, which is 10% higher than in the 2022 elections. The most influential media, engaged in unprofessional government promotion, flooded the public space with verbal violence. Together with state institutions, the media were contributing to erasing the line between the state and the party. It seemed like elections for the President of Serbia were taking place, and a quarter of citizens actually believed so. President Vučić, who was not even a candidate, gained four hours more media time than all opposition lists together. This added up to his overwhelming media appearances – in 2023 President made more than 300 live TV addresses.

Pressures against voters and election corruption were ruthless in targeting employees in the public sector, and the social-welfare system beneficiaries. None of these cases received a single institutional or court epilogue.

On election day, CRTA preliminary established 10% of polling stations in Belgrade and 5% at parliamentary elections contaminated with severe election irregularities – vote-buying, carousel voting, secrecy of vote violations,  etc. In Belgrade, CRTA also found patterns of organised voter migrations and voter registry problems at 14% of polling stations. Although Belgrade elections were observed only by CRTA, as ODIHR did not have this mandate, evidence is compelling to point to violations of 1990 Copenhagen Document and election fraud.

And, what CRTA observers disclosed is only the tip of the iceberg, with the use of multiple statistical analysis, including the analysis of scarce data available in the Voter Registry; data from the polling stations; and information received from inside institutions and from citizens. The pattern that we have recognised is that: 

• people’s primary residency, necessary for voting in local elections, was changed to Belgrade just before elections, in an organised, corruptive way; 

• these people were registered in groups to addresses, usually without living conditions; 

• they were escorted to vote,; 
• and after elections, their removal from the Voter Registry is taking place.

This operation could have only been orchestrated within institutions – Ministry of Interior, maintaining residency register; Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, maintaining Voter Register; and local self-governments, updating the Voter Register for their territories. Imagine if a civil servant in Germany would unlawfully change Hauptwohnsitz of a number of people to be moved from Frankfurt to vote in local elections in Leipzig – how would German institutions react?

Today, we call upon the institutions to urgently enable transparency and prosecute law violations – necessary preconditions for restoring election integrity and basic trust in institutions. The Voter Registry must be urgently and independently audited following the ODIHR recommendation. The police and prosecution need to investigate all allegations, and prosecute the responsible ones.

Having in mind that the state is denying a single problem with elections, it is clear that Serbia needs support from the European Union, EU member states, and international democratic actors in finding solutions for overcoming this crisis. We expect the international community to see beyond geopolitics, or to perceive geopolitical interests in a wider picture, which reveals that those interests won’t be met if democracy keeps eroding in Serbia – that can only bring the country closer to the nondemocratic part of the world. Prompt involvement of Russia to help the Government of Serbia in legitimising its position confirms this.