OSCE: “The elections in Serbia were well organized, but we are not happy!”
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) stated in the final report of the Special Election Assessment Mission that there was voter suppression and abuse of power.
This was reported by Beta, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In the report, ODIHR attacked Serbia for the fact that the Serbian parliament amended the Electoral Law just before the elections, “including issues that were not discussed publicly,” which was “contrary to international obligations and best practice.”
The authors of the document decided to omit the fact that before this the country lived in anti-Covid quarantine mode. At the same time, they recalled that among the adopted changes was a reduction in the percentage threshold for parties to enter parliament and the creation of conditions for better representation of national minorities in it. The Europeans recognized this, but made paradoxical conclusions:
“Although the amendments facilitate representation in parliament, experts from the ODIHR special mission believe that the purpose of these changes is to reduce the consequences of the boycott of the (pro-Western - ed.) opposition.”
The authors of the report also criticized the fact that in the media “there was no clear distinction between the position of the President of Serbia and the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party Aleksandar Vucic, and there was a blurred line between a political campaign and coverage of the activities of the President and the government, including during the pandemic crisis.”
That is, according to the logic of the Europeans, the Serbian media, when talking about Vucic as the leader of the election bloc, should not tell the voter about his activities as president, and vice versa.
“Most television channels with national frequency and most newspapers promoted government policies. Some media outlets that offered alternative views did not provide an effective counterbalance, calling into question the diversity of views available to voters in traditional media,” ODIHROBSE said.
According to the authors of the report, the Republican Electoral Commission of Serbia effectively organized the elections, the process went well, and the procedure was generally followed. However, the ODIHR OBSE special mission did “identify cases and receive credible reports of violations of the election silence in favor of the ruling party.”
It is not surprising that the leaders of the non-systemic pro-Western opposition, which boycotted the elections, welcomed the conclusion of European experts.
“We, the pro-European opposition parties in Serbia, associated with the Socialists and Democrats and the Renew Europe group, welcome the assessments of the state of democracy in the European Commission progress report, especially the problems with the elections, in which even the basic conditions for a political process did not exist .
It is more than clear that Serbia has serious shortcomings when it comes to the basic political criteria for EU membership, and that the current course is not possible for a country that wants to join the EU. The apparent disregard for fundamental democratic rights and principles, as the report rightly points out, clearly demonstrates that this government is only nominally pro-European.
We welcome calls for the European Parliament to initiate an inter-party dialogue in Serbia to address key issues recognized by opposition parties,” opposition leaders Dragan Djilas, Zoran Lutovac and Pavle Grbovic said in a joint statement.
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