Polling Stations Abroad: RIK and Ministry Fail to Agree

A working group of the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) met on Wednesday, October 7, at 2 p.m. to consider a supplement to the decision on polling stations abroad. No agreement was reached with the Foreign Ministry on increasing their number, and a new meeting is set for October 8, according to N1, which says it has not received the Ministry’s answer to its questions.

Representatives of the Foreign Ministry and RIK chair Vladimir Dimitrijevic were invited to the meeting, commission member Ivan Sebek told the FoNet agency in the morning. According to him, the subject is not changing the 93 polling stations already adopted but adopting a decision to supplement them.

“The topic will be to supplement the number of polling stations abroad, that is, to adopt a decision on a supplement. There is no reason to change this decision in terms of the number, it just needs to be supplemented,” Sebek said.

RIK adopted the decision on 93 polling stations on October 5, with 20 votes in favor and seven against. There were 81 in the 2023 elections, and the parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 25. N1 reports that the Ministry proposed 90 locations, most of them in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 28 in all.

Why is a supplement needed: Thessaloniki, Herceg Novi, Sofia, Istanbul

Sebek said the Ministry’s proposal contains numerous inconsistencies and does not clearly explain the criteria by which some locations were proposed and others left out. The stated rationale, he said, is that voting takes place at diplomatic and consular missions, yet compared with the previous elections Herceg Novi, Thessaloniki, Sofia and Istanbul were left out.

“If the principle is to vote at the diplomatic and consular missions, then we need to establish why these missions are not covered. Did too few people register, so there is no point opening them, or did enough register? We know, for example, that 200 or more registered for Thessaloniki. What is the reasoning for not opening Thessaloniki? What is the reasoning for not opening Herceg Novi?” Sebek said.

Sebek added that at the previous RIK session one member said the Serbian Progressive Party lost the majority of votes at that mission in Herceg Novi in the last elections. The sources do not report any reaction from the Ministry to this claim.

Letters to host countries

Polling stations outside diplomatic and consular missions need the host country’s consent, which, according to Sebek, is what the Ministry told them. He asked the Ministry for the letter it sent to, for example, Germany and other states, but RIK, he claims, did not receive it. In his words, the Ministry insisted it had sent the letters, and Germany denied this.

“The people from the Ministry lied to us that they had delivered a letter. You have it in Vreme, I think it was published, that Germany denied it,” Sebek said.

Sebek is referring to reporting by the weekly Vreme, adding that he is not sure the piece was published, and the sources do not quote the piece itself. He announced he would raise the issue again at the working group’s meeting. Objections to the voting hours, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central European Time, were not considered by the working group: on that, Sebek says, RIK decides at its session.

Why does Abu Dhabi have no polling station for the first time?

For the first time since it opened in 2013, the Serbian embassy in Abu Dhabi has not been designated as a polling station, even though more than 800 voters registered in the United Arab Emirates. Marija Gregoric, a Serbian citizen living in the Emirates who has served as an election monitor before, told N1 that 447 people registered in the previous elections, of whom 250 to 300 voted.

Gregoric says the Ministry cited security concerns because of the war between Iran and America, which she does not accept.

“Their excuse that they are supposedly afraid for our safety is not the most honest reason why they do not want to open a polling station at the embassy, because there were stations before for a much smaller number of registered voters,” Gregoric said.

N1 also writes that there are no polling stations in Geneva and Lugano or in Bulgaria, although they existed in the previous elections, and that the diaspora will not be able to vote in Romania either. Voters from the diaspora have sent a letter to institutions in Europe and America asking for more polling stations and a change in voting hours, and N1 does not say which institutions.

RIK members and diplomats

Two RIK members criticized the Ministry’s decision in comments to N1. Tanasije Marinkovic said:

“With one utterly arbitrary decision, the Foreign Ministry takes away these citizens’ right. This is an arbitrary decision, this is pure violence.”

Vladimir Dragas said: “The authorities at this moment assess that the majority of the diaspora has decided to vote against them.”

The same day, more than 30 diplomats of the Foreign Ministry spoke out in a joint statement. They say the number of proposed locations is not proportionate to the interest, since almost three times as many voters registered abroad as in 2023. They name Bratislava, Vancouver, Abu Dhabi and Herceg Novi as places without polling stations, and note that Ministry representatives did not come to an earlier meeting of the RIK Working Group for Abroad, where they were supposed to explain the criteria.

“Diaspora, we are sorry. The doors that have been closed to you were not closed by our hand, but we will not stay silent that it was done in the name of our institution, which should represent and protect the interests and rights of all citizens of the Republic of Serbia,” the diplomats state.

What comes next

The working group meets again on October 8. Until then, three questions remain open: whether the list of 93 locations will be supplemented, whether the Ministry will deliver the letters to the host countries, and whether the voting hours will change. The elections are on October 25.