CIVICUS discusses recent local elections in Serbia with Tamara Branković, deputy program director at the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA). CRTA is an independent, non-partisan civil society organisation working to develop democratic culture and civic activism in Serbia.
In Serbia’s 2 June local elections, the coalition led by President Aleksandar Vučić’s nationalist Serbian Progressive Party won in the two largest cities, including the capital, Belgrade, where the polls were a rerun of a December election found by international observers to have serious irregularities, and which sparked months of protests. In Belgrade’s rerun, a new centre-right group came second and the left-wing greens third. This time, the elections appeared to be cleaner, but competitiveness was limited as the ruling party misused state resources to favour its candidates.
Why did the ruling coalition win in the local elections?
We only observed the elections for the Assembly of the City of Belgrade, but I believe our conclusion also applies to other local elections that took place on 2 June.
It should be noted that the election in Belgrade was a rerun of last December’s election, which, as CRTA proved, was severely compromised by illegal and illegitimate electoral engineering, mainly through organised voter migration. The June election was the second, less bad half of an extremely dirty match.
The campaign didn’t feel like a campaign for local elections but rather for national elections. The dominant political force, with President Aleksandar Vučić at its head, placed what it called issues of ‘national survival’ at the top of the agenda, charging the atmosphere with hardcore nationalist sentiments.
This was further fuelled by a vote just a few days before the election in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on a resolution on genocide in Srebrenica. It drove an unparalleled propaganda surge, presented as a dignified national defence against a hostile west allegedly attempting to put a label of collective guilt on Serbian people.
When I refer to the dominant political force, I mean not only the ruling Serbian Progressive Party but also state officials, because the line between the ruling party and the state has increasingly blurred, which is a key explanation of the election results. Political clientelism and pressures on voters contributed significantly to the ruling party’s victory.
What role did civil society play in the elections, and what challenges did you face?
Our role was to try to rescue what could be saved of the integrity of the electoral process. We tried to inform and educate citizens about their electoral rights and the ways those rights were being manipulated and abused. We sought to mobilise citizens to report any violations they saw to our observation mission. And most importantly, we tried to recruit and train enough citizen observers so we could get a full picture of the quality of elections. It was a large operation that lasted from April to June, involving 1,500 people.
But we live in a system that’s allergic to pluralism. Our government is hostile to critical voices, so the space for civil society is constantly shrinking. We need our international friends to be aware of this and spread the word that democracy in Serbia is in danger.
What other concerning trends did you see?
Unfortunately, we’ve seen a growth of several negative trends. We witnessed a record number of cases of vote buying and numerous tense situations that approached or crossed the line into violence. All the chronic problems that have devalued elections for many years continued to grow, from people’s distrust of the voters’ register and extremely unequal media access for candidates, to abuse of state institutions and public resources, unscrupulous pressure on voters and deteriorating conditions for election observation.
Since the December 2023 elections, a number of international voices have spoken out about the situation in Serbia. The UN Human Rights Committee issued a strong rebuke, criticising the Serbian authorities for their opaque handling of election violations. Various UN human rights experts reported serious state attacks on election observers, civil society and the media and asked for clarifications from the Serbian government, but barely received a response.
These problems remain unresolved because of state capture. State institutions are subordinated to party interests, and the party in power shows no political will to change this situation.
Civic space in Serbia is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with CRTA through its website, and follow @CRTArs and @nemaperspektive on Twitter.
