Elections in Serbia: A rigged game

The topic of election control in Serbia is something like managing a football team. We all know how elections are stolen and we think we know how the election result can be defended, just as we would if we were the selectors of the national football team. And we know that the game is rigged in both spheres. Some people who know a lot more about football than I do have been talking about it these days.

Since 1990, there have not been many elections in Serbia that we could say were fair. I know people who have been following the elections since the early 1990s or 2000s (depending on whether they belong to a slightly older or younger generation) and have not given up. I learn from them. My experience is far more modest. I have been participating in election monitoring since 2018 - once as a representative in the election commission and twice as a candidate.

After the 2018 Belgrade elections, after my experience in the Belgrade GIK, I wrote on my Facebook profile: "My colleague and I left our hearts on the field, but realistically we could not make any change." The game was rigged long before we entered it. Parties of national minorities, changes in the voter list, composition of election committees, decision-making methods in GIK, non-involvement of the Administrative Court in its own work, etc., etc. There is no need to talk about inequality in the campaign. And then on election day ... bringing people to vote, unusually large votes outside the polling station, violating the secrecy of the vote, creating parallel lists ... the list is long. We are facing a team that sovereignly rules the election process, and that should be clear to everyone. Preparations for the next elections should begin today!"

Every time learning about new scams

Not much has changed since then. It's just that every time something new becomes known to the public. This year, it is the realization that there are election lists whose support is at least to some extent fictitious, that is, non-existent. It is quite possible that this is not news, but this year it happened that the members of GIK, which are in the permanent and extended composition, appointed parties that are part of the coalition Serbia against violence, during the review of the documents submitted by the electoral lists (as many as seven of them out of the total 14) appear the names of people who are either known to the public (because they are journalists, actresses, activists, well-known experts) or are known to them (because they are their colleagues or acquaintances). Those people, who are not members of political parties, all in turn claim that they did not sign their support for those electoral lists and that they do not know how their names and personal data ended up in that documentation. It is a random sample and no one has yet determined how many more such cases there are. And it is easy to believe that there are.

And it's as if what these people claim is some minor, personal, legal problem of theirs. As if they can solve that little problem on their own, start some criminal or civil procedure themselves (if they have the strength and nerve, as well as legal aid). Those who advocate this argument - whether they are the majority in GIK, members of judicial panels in the High Court in Belgrade or active participants in the so-called social network X, as if they basically don't care much about the electoral process, because none of those actions protect the effective right of those people to vote, nor do they protect the integrity of our electoral process.

Legal fight against windmills

That's why the legal battle that we started before the High Court in Belgrade was aimed at not allowing those lists that were found to have massively misused the personal data of citizens (or to which falsified voter statements were planted) to participate in the elections. because that is also possible). The electoral right of citizens (which both the GIK and the High Court are obliged to protect) is not only the right to run for office and to vote, but also to freely decide which electoral list to support. Even if these people's ID cards fell out of their pockets, someone picked them up and took them to the notary, that would be a violation of their rights and should not go without consequences in the election process.

I must admit that this year there was a glimmer of hope that my colleagues from the higher courts, since they are deciding on the protection of electoral rights for the first time, will start examining these cases unencumbered by the previous practice of the Administrative Court. It didn't happen. The judgments of the High Court seem to scream: Mind your own business and don't get too involved.

At one time, as a researcher, I analyzed all the decisions of the Belgrade GIK on objections and all the decisions of the Administrative Court on appeals in 2018 and concluded that in our legal system there is no effective remedy for the protection of electoral rights, and that the Administrative Court in a crucial number of cases to the position of the election commission (which is basically a political body, because it is dominated by the political majority), often without referring to a single argument or evidentiary proposal from the submitted complaint. And the verdicts of the High Court in Belgrade so far follow this "good practice".

From the decisions of the GIK and the judgments of the High Court, it is not clear whether anyone thought to, for example, contact the municipal administrations where the statements were allegedly authenticated. To check whether the person listed as a notary still works in that administration or whether he still works in notarization work. In the end, this is how the RIK acted, when it learned from the administrations of Vranje and New Belgrade that the signatures were not at all or not at all verified for the two lists that, in the end, were not verified. Why the GIK did not follow the practice of the REC (even though both commissions are dominated by the same political majority) remains a mystery for now.

What is Serbia against violence?

OK, let's move on. There are 14 ballots left on the ballot in Belgrade, but the fact remains that someone certified or falsified the alleged voter statements, and someone brought such statements into the election commission building. No matter how you look at it, some people have committed crimes that carry sentences of three to five years on average that won't expire until December 17th, and won't expire soon after.

For me, a Serbia without violence is first and foremost a Serbia in which there are conditions for anyone who has broken the law to be held accountable. That's why I don't give up filing criminal charges, objections, appeals, complaints, whatever I know how to write, I will write and submit.

Besides all the legal issues, it remains that elections are, after all, one game. The one who has more goals, baskets, votes wins. I believe that it is possible to win more votes than SNS. And the only thing that remains certain is that the only way to save your vote is to go to the polls, sign yourself next to your name in the voter list, take the ballot in your hands, circle it and put it in the box.

The author is a candidate for parliament and a full professor at the Faculty of Law Union University in Belgrade

Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com