Even before the local elections were announced, the campaign was already in full swing in some municipalities. In Smederevska Palanka, ministerial visits, free preventive examinations and promises about investments have been alternating in recent weeks - a pattern of official campaigns known from earlier election cycles.
Local elections in ten municipalities and cities in Serbia are scheduled for March 29th. Even before the President of the National Assembly announced them on Monday (February 23), the field campaign started in some places. Not directly, but through a series of indirect steps. That's how it is Smederevska Palanka.
The first coalition agreement was signed the day after the election was announced. It was signed by the local leaders of the Serbian Progressive Party, the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Serbian Radical Party, the Party of United Pensioners of Serbia, the Serbian Party Zavetnici and Healthy Serbia.
According to some residents of this municipality, the campaign was well underway even before the election was announced, based on what is happening on the ground. Varoš, at the confluence of Kubršnica and Jasenica, has recently been visited by ministers and various other representatives of state institutions, and health preventive examinations.
On the first working day after the New Year holidays, the health center in this place was very crowded from early in the morning. Although some of the patients had scheduled appointments with selected doctors in advance, they had to wait, because one of the three doctors working in the morning shift that day went to a village as part of the so-called free preventive check-up campaign.
Some patients remained in the waiting room during the entire first shift, not waiting for their turn to enter the office.
This kind of action was organized in several villages in recent weeks, and the response was great, local media write. People could go to examinations without an appointment and a certified medical card.
In the last few years, the Ministry of Health organizes so-called "preventive examinations". Examinations are promoted as "free" and "without appointment", which aims to attract the attention of citizens and create the impression that they will exercise some right that has been denied to them until now, a part of Serbian health workers announced earlier.
However, the majority of Serbian citizens have health insurance and should not pay for health services in state institutions, or pay only a symbolic co-payment of 50 or 100 dinars, depending on the type of service.
"Vreme" sent questions to the health center in this municipality regarding examinations, how they are organized, how to determine the schedule of visits and the work of doctors, but the answers did not reach the conclusion of this article.
Smederevska Palanka On February 11, the Health Caravan of the Ministry of Health also passed. The goal of this action, initiated by the Ministry of Health in previous years, is the early detection of cardiovascular diseases. Coincidentally or not, on February 11, the caravan visited Smederevska Palanka and Arandjelovac, two places where elections will be organized at the end of March.
Five days earlier, the caravan was in Bajana Bašta, where voting is also held in March, and since the beginning of the year in Kula, Kladovo and Majdanpek. In all these places, voting takes place on the same day.
In Smederevska Palanka and Arandjelovac, at the beginning of February, a mobile mammogram was parked - a bus in which women could have a mammogram with an appointment, but without waiting for months.
The hospital in Smederevska Palanka was visited on February 24 by the state secretary in the Ministry of Health, Mirsad Đerlek. He spoke with patients and announced investments and reconstruction of part of the hospital.
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Previously, at the beginning of February, he stayed in the hospitals in Bor and Majdanpek.
In recent days, Smederevo Palanka has also been visited by ministers.
The Minister of Environmental Protection Sara Pavkov stayed there and promised to solve local problems, among other things illegal landfill rehabilitation. She also visited some families, accompanied by the president of the municipality.
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After her, the Minister of Economy Adrijana Mesarević also took a walk in this town.
A few days before that, on February 19, a feast was organized for pensioners, which was also attended by the director of the PIO fund, Relja Ognjenović.
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Such visits could be classified in the category of officials' campaign, which is what the Transparency Serbia organization assessed as events and visits before local elections in certain places in Serbia.
The campaign for the November elections in the three municipalities is the best indicator that there is no intention to implement the key recommendation of the ODIHR from June 2024 - the separation of the party from the state and prevention of abuse of public resources, TS announced at the time.
"In addition to local officials, republican officials also participate in the campaign, who during the last five weeks visited these three municipalities as much as 27 times more often than in the previous non-election period, presenting it as their 'regular activities,'" the organization announced after these elections. Transparency Serbia.
The number of ministerial visits in the month before the elections was many times higher than in the period outside the campaign, stated TS.
"In the 198 weeks before the election campaign, a total of 23 visits by ministers were recorded in Mionica, Zaječar and Sečanj. In the last five weeks during the election campaign, there were 16 such visits, which means that they were 27,5 times more frequent than in the non-election period," the statement said.
In numerous places where voting will take place on March 29, they have sprung up since the beginning of the year new local media - with the same editor-in-chief, without the journalist's name indicated in imprints and similar texts.
These are portals founded by the Novi Sad company Zaple Media Group, and their editor-in-chief is Gradimir Banković, who is also an associate of the Center for Social Stability. This non-governmental organization has recently produced a series of films in which it targets dissidents from the authorities, including journalists, and new episodes have been announced. The same organization was behind the so-called anti-blockades - meetings of progressives organized in response to student and civil actions.
One such medium he also appeared in Smederevska Palanka.
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