The beginning of June marked the results of the controversial local elections in Serbia, with the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) securing a sweeping victory in 85 out of 89 cities and towns. The SNS, under the de facto leadership of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučiċ, has maintained its grip on power for the past decade and has secured another term. The outcome, while anticipated by many, came amid concerns raised by the opposition regarding the veracity and transparency of the electoral process. The local elections, together with parliamentary snap elections held in December 2023, occurred in a politically challenged environment that warranted international supervision.
Last year, Serbia suffered significant political turmoil and mass protests due to public dissatisfaction with the government’s work. Adding to Serbia’s political instability, the opposition has been boycotting elections since 2020. Reasons for the boycott include: unfair control of the media landscape by SNS, voter intimidation and pressure - primarily on public sector employees - to vote for the ruling party, and allegations of misconduct in vote registration and counting. The opposition demanded electoral reforms to ensure an even playing field, demands of which were vastly ignored.
Under pressure from both the domestic sphere and the international community, the Serbian government made a strategic decision to hold snap parliamentary and partial local elections in December 2023, rushing elections ahead of schedule. The decision proved advantageous for SNS, as the opposition did not have time to prepare for the campaign or to address any possible election misconduct. Thus, SNS was declared the winner of the parliamentary and local councils’ elections. The results led to another wave of public outrage, as Serbian citizens protested against the corrupt government, storming the Belgrade City Assembly. The opposition accused SNS of voter migration, claiming they organised the mass movement of ethnic Serbs living in neighbouring countries such as North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the cities where elections were held, buying their votes.
The SNS denied such accusations, but international rights watchdogs observing elections reported multiple irregularities. Additionally, they criticised the ruling party for positioning Aleksandar Vučić as the face of the campaign and allowing him to take up the bulk of media coverage, despite him not participating in the elections. Vučić was the president of SNS from 2012 until 2023, when he handed over the reins to Miloš Vučeviċ; yet, he remains the central political figure in Serbian politics, contributing to the strong polarisation.
The European Parliament immediately called for an ad hoc independent investigation of elections, threatening fund suspensions if the Serbian government did not meet its key conditions. The matter was taken seriously, as Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2012. In February, an official resolution was passed, calling on the European Commission to dispatch experts. Ultimately, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was tasked with monitoring the process and addressing existing issues, as ODIHR has been involved with Serbian politics for over two decades.
ODIHR’s observation mission began its work on April 30 to fully assess the local elections held on June 2, 2024. In the aftermath of the elections, ODIHR reported that they were "well-administered, offering voters a wide range of political alternatives." Later in the document, it highlighted the key issues as polarisation in political discourse and the fragmentation of the opposition. Furthermore, it drew attention to the corrupt media landscape and its selective coverage of election information, which provided limited information to voters. It exposed multiple cases of intimidation of investigative journalists whose agendas did not line with the agenda of the ruling party and Vučić, as well as lawsuits against them. Impunity was provided for crimes against journalists. The media was found to be politically and economically biassed, denoting a misuse of public resources - a longstanding concern of ODIHR.
The voting process was observed to have significant issues, including pressure voting, group voting and proxy voting. Issues with voter registers and inaccuracies are said to have given a substantial advantage to the ruling party. ODIHR raised concerns over alleged voter migration and the abuse of votes cast in the names of deceased individuals, claiming the secrecy of the vote negatively impacted the elections. Overall, the electoral legal framework was deemed to have an “adequate basis for the conduct of democratic elections”, yet it was marred by multiple irregularities and inconsistencies. The framework was already revised in 2022, but the key issues remained unaddressed two years later.
According to this year’s Freedom House report, Serbia remains one of the ten countries to have suffered the largest decline in Democracy Score since 2005. In this report, it is described as “a system of governance that mixes features of democracy and authoritarianism”. Serbia is one of the countries, together with Poland and Hungary, to participate in the ongoing phenomenon in Europe called ‘democratic backsliding’, signalling the erosion of democratic values and institutions.
Despite international oversight and Serbia’s aspirations to join the European Union, the Serbian leadership remains untroubled by democratic challenges and shows little commitment to addressing them. To quote Ana Brnanbiċ, Serbian Prime Minister when the European Parliament called for the election investigation in February: “Resolutions come and go”.
Image: Ivan Aleksic/Unsplash
Comments