Elections in Serbia (BETAPHOTO/Milan Obradovic)
Over one-fourth of the tickets in the upcoming local elections in ten Serbian cities and municipalities are suspected of being “phantom,” i.e. created by the regime to undermine true competition and/or control local electoral committees during the voting process, Rasa Nedeljkov, the program director of nonprofit Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), said on March 12.
“These are chronic problems of the voting process in Serbia. . . We do not voice these suspicions based on impressions but rather based on several clear criteria. We recommend said criteria be used to assess the election tickets and the red flags will be obvious,” Nedeljkov told the Nova daily.
According to Nedeljkov, the upcoming elections have been patently marked by the regime’s attempts to hamstring true political competition by making it difficult to submit tickets, but also by via phantom tickets which create the impression of pluralism.
“They are probably counting on such tickets stealing a certain number of votes from authentic regime opponents by leading voters astray,” Nedeljkov opined.
Regular local elections will be taking place in Kula, Smederevska Palanka, Majdanpek, Arandjelovac, Bor, Sevojno, Bajina Basta, Knjazevac, Lucani and Kladovo on March 29.
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