Election Cycles

The extraordinary parliamentary and Belgrade elections were not free and fair. The election outcomes emerged as a result of the unlawful advantages gained by the ruling party, with the complicity of several state institutions and authorities – primarily the Ministry of  Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as bodies of certain local self-governments. From the moment when the elections were officially called, institutions increasingly disregarded legal constraints, leading to local election results in Belgrade not reflecting the freely expressed will of the citizens, and significantly compromising the legitimacy of parliamentary election outcomes. Responsible institutions are ignoring a mass of evidence and indications of not only gross violations of democratic principles but also a series of criminal acts in the election process. This further reinforced the principles of impunity and legal uncertainty, for which prosecutorial bodies bear the greatest responsibility. The spectrum of severe endangerments of voters’ and candidates’ rights includes unscrupulous pressures on citizens, manipulations of the voters registry, forgeries of support signatures for nominated lists, misuse of citizens’ personal data, and falsification of the election results publication date in the Official Gazette, committed to prevent the opposition from utilizing the legal deadline for submitting complaints to the Constitutional Court. Such law violations would not have been possible without the passivity and direct involvement of institutions, i.e. civil servants at various levels of hierarchy. Initiating criminal and disciplinary proceedings to establish responsibility and punish the initiators and perpetrators of the criminal acts destroying the electoral integrity is a prerequisite for any further discussion on the electoral process. From the observation mission’s standpoint, it is disturbing to note that chronic problems of elections in Serbia have been somewhat overshadowed by the onslaught and weight of evidence about illegal and illegitimate electoral engineering, including organized voter migrations. These include political clientelism and pressures on voters, media inequality, misuse of public resources and office – which were even more pronounced in comparison with previous elections. The findings of the CRTA Election Observation Mission show serious irregularities at 13 percent of polling stations in the parliamentary elections, while in the Belgrade elections, the share of such polling stations amounts to as much as 21 percent.

Organized voter migration is a type of electoral engineering that includes coordinated behavior of voters that temporarily change their residence to another constituency to influence voting results. In Serbia, in the Elections 2023 it might have been used on a large scale to influence the outcomes of the local elections strategically called only in one part of cities and municipalities. Organized voter migration is neither legal nor legitimate. Applying for fictitious residences to use the voting right in another constituency violates the acting law regulating citizens’ residences in Serbia. It also undermines electoral equality and substantially infringes upon the guaranteed right to local self-government. CRTA Election Observation Mission has actively collected evidence and conducted analyses about the organized voter migration before, during, and after Election Day. Qualitative evidence was collected from citizens and informants before the elections, by CRTA’s observers in and around polling stations during Election Day, and by collecting statements by political actors confirming or even justifying the practice. Additional analysis was done using quantitative data collected from the voter register excerpt and the polling station-level election results. When manipulation of the voter register happens on a big scale, it cannot be kept secret. Information about anomalies in the voter register was collected from citizens before Election Day, which raised attention to possible issues. Parallel insider information about voter migration confirmed these suspicions. Several testimonies were collected, indicating possible activity from within the ruling party organization, from local municipal administration, and even manipulation from the central level.  Crucial pieces of evidence were collected on Election Day by CRTA observers at the representative sample of polling stations in Belgrade. Photographic or video evidence was collected of large-scale organized migration of voters from within other regions in Serbia and from abroad. CRTA observers recorded several logistical centers from where the voters were sent to polling stations across Belgrade. Instances of organized voter transportation, supervised voting, or irregularities that point to potential voter identity manipulations were identified at 14% of all polling stations in Belgrade. An additional analysis was performed after Election Day, using quantitative data from the official voter register excerpts and the voting results. It showed a substantial scope of changes in the voter register on an annual level that should be further scrutinized. The analysis helped identify polling stations in Belgrade with a high probability of being a destination for organized migration of voters, and it associated such polling stations with an increased number of votes for the incumbent. Political actors themselves provided external validation for this analysis. Several senior politicians or government officials from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina explicitly confirmed such practice exists or even justified it as legal or legitimate. It was neither. CRTA Election Observation Mission strongly believes organized voter migration may be a serious challenge to the quality of elections in Serbia and will be difficult to tackle. In the preliminary statement on Election Day, CRTA assessed that the results of the elections in Belgrade do not reflect the freely expressed will of voters living there. If this practice persists, with regular local elections scheduled in less than six months, there is little time to address these issues. This is why we close this preliminary statement with recommendations that might put an end to it. The full report can be found below.

The campaign for the extraordinary parliamentary and Belgrade elections took place in an atmosphere of systematic abuse of institutions, public functions and the most influential media, which placed electoral actors in an unequal position. Mass cases of falsification of signatures for candidacy marked the process of the submission of electoral lists. Worrying allegations of pressure on citizens through the public sector, cases of misuse of personal data and the fear of part of the public that the voter list and voting rights are being manipulated call into question the integrity of the institutions of the Serbian state. Formal restrictions on participation in the elections were not recorded, but the campaign took place in a manner in which the border between the state and the party was erased and intolerance towards political opponents was encouraged. In the penultimate week of the campaign, CRTA sent an appeal to around 1,600 addresses of officials in all city and municipal administrations in Serbia, reminding them of their legal obligations and calling on them to do everything in their power to protect the implementation of the law and the integrity of institutions. The recommendations to the institutions and election actors, which the CRTA Election Observation Mission presented in its previous report, remained unanswered regarding the problems of pressure on voters, suspicions of manipulation of the voter list and voting rights, media inequality and unethical reporting on election candidates.

The campaign for the extraordinary parliamentary and Belgrade elections took place in an atmosphere of systematic abuse of institutions, public functions and the most influential media, which placed electoral actors in an unequal position. Mass cases of falsification of signatures for candidacy marked the process of the submission of electoral lists. Worrying allegations of pressure on citizens through the public sector, cases of misuse of personal data and the fear of part of the public that the voter list and voting rights are being manipulated call into question the integrity of the institutions of the Serbian state. Formal restrictions on participation in the elections were not recorded, but the campaign took place in a manner in which the border between the state and the party was erased and intolerance towards political opponents was encouraged. In the penultimate week of the campaign, CRTA sent an appeal to around 1,600 addresses of officials in all city and municipal administrations in Serbia, reminding them of their legal obligations and calling on them to do everything in their power to protect the implementation of the law and the integrity of institutions. The recommendations to the institutions and election actors, which the CRTA Election Observation Mission presented in its previous report, remained unanswered regarding the problems of pressure on voters, suspicions of manipulation of the voter list and voting rights, media inequality and unethical reporting on election candidates.

The CRTA Election Observation Mission assesses that the course of the election campaign thus far has been marked by pronounced advantages which the ruling parties have gained through the abuse of institutions and manipulations of the electoral calendar. In less than two years, the second extraordinary parliamentary and Belgrade elections were announced. Extraordinary provincial elections were also announced, and without precedent and clear explanation, a decision was made to hold snap local elections in over a third of the municipalities, half a year before they were set to be scheduled. The relatively short inter-election period was not used to improve electoral conditions.