Preliminary Report on the Elections for Deputies in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, January 2007

With the support of National Democratic Institute (NDI), Embassy of Denmark, Embassy of Finland and the Royal Embassy of Netherlands, CeSID organised impartial domestic monitoring of the elections for deputies in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, held on January 21st, 2007.
The monitoring mission of CeSID comprised a total of 5,000 stationary and mobile domestic monitors who participated in the process. Four monitors were accredited to monitor the work of the Republican Electoral Commission (RIK). CeSID monitors did also cover the activities of all the working bodies of RIK in the municipalities all over Serbia.    
Along with CeSID, the elections were also monitored by the accredited international observers from the OSCE, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, as well as monitors from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Introduction and General Assessment of the Elections
The elections behind us are the first parliamentary elections held following the establishment of Serbia as an independent country.
After the elections where citizens of Serbia voted for their future representatives in the legislature, we can establish that these elections were organised and conducted mostly in compliance with rules and procedures, and democratic standards and principles.

Electoral Legislation

Electoral System

The proportional electoral system is in effect in Serbia. Serbia is a single electoral unit. In order to participate in the distribution of parliamentary seats, the electoral list must obtain at least 5% of the total number of votes. The distribution of parliamentary seats is made according to the D'Hondt formula.
Alterations of the Law on Election of Deputies provided the electoral lists of ethnic minorities with the opportunity to participate in the distribution of mandates regardless of the issue of obtaining five percent of the total number of votes. Ethnic minority parties are thus for the first time able to chose whether to participate alone in the elections or to have their candidates on the electoral lists of other parties. For the ethnic minorities, this was also the first real chance to have their authentic representatives in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.
The political scene of Serbia is undoubtedly aggregating. This opens the space for considering the replacement of the existing electoral system with the one that would be more appropriate for the new situation at the home front policy.

Mandates of Deputies

Following the completion of the elections and distribution of mandates, the parties have, contrary to the standards, the right to choose at their own will the candidates from the electoral lists who will be allocated with a mandate. This is to say that, when opting for a particular electoral list, the voters can not know which of the proposed candidates could be their representative in the parliament.
Moreover, the Constitution provides for the deputy's irrevocable right to give up his mandate in favour of the party whose list he was on at the time the elections were held. Despite international standards, the parliamentary mandates, and the behaviour of the deputies in their work are subjected to strict control of the parties the deputies belong to.
Bearing in mind these issues, it is only reasonable to pose the question are the deputies representing their parties or the citizens in the National Parliament, even though the Constitution does not create any dilemma here, as it clearly says that sovereignty belongs to citizens, who exercise power through their representatives in the National Assembly. Furthermore, another issue arises as a consequence: whose interests are the deputies to represent (interests of the citizens or interests of the parties), and to what extent will they be free to behave and decide, in accordance with their own opinion and consciousness in the future composition of the parliament. The logical consequence of such a solution is the concentration of power in the hands of party leaders.

Media

Media represent an integral part of the elections; fair behaviour of media is one of the inseparable components of fair elections. However, this time like many times in the past, the National Assembly of Republic of Serbia failed to name the Supervising Board, the body legally authorised to monitor the behaviour of media during the campaign and at the time of pre-elections silence. The Republican Broadcasting Agency did define and monitor the behaviour of electronic media during the pre-elections campaign, but the print media remained outside the scope of such control.
It is thus impossible to establish if and to what extent the media, above all the print, respected the provisions for the equal treatment of all participants in the elections. Although the law stipulates sanctions for violation of the rules on equal treatment of all participants in the elections, the sanctions can not be consistently imposed to all the potential violators. 

Financing of Campaigns of Political Parties

The Law on Financing of Political Parties adopted in 2003 has provided a series of rules, with the aim of ensuring the transparency of financing the campaigns of political parties and candidates.
The Law stipulates the obligation of participants in the elections to report on expenses for their campaigns. Representatives of electoral lists are obliged to submit the reports on raised and spent funds to the Republican Electoral Commission. It is the task of this commission to review the reports and establish the legality of party finances in the pre-elections campaign.
In its assessment of legality of parties' behaviour, the RIK is guided solely by the parties' reports. At the same time, the RIK comprises representatives of the parties and thus objectivity and promptness of their work can be put into doubt. Moreover, the RIK does not have expert and other required capacities at its disposal for the quality control of collection and expenditure of funds within the pre-elections campaign. 
It is necessary to take into consideration the possibility of improving the rules in this area, in the way that would provide the unimpeded realisation of the principle of transparency in the financing of political parties.

Pre-election Silence

Inconclusive rules that regulate the behaviour and activities of participants in the elections and media during the 48-hour period prior to the commencement of voting, as well as their behaviour in the course of voting, provide basis for different interpretations. Such interpretations, which can even be wrong and sometimes stigmatised by personal perception of certain behaviour, may cause confusion in perception of the behaviour of actors in elections and media at the time of pre-elections silence.   
The issue of length of pre-electoral silence should also be taken into consideration. In the neighbouring countries, as well as in the countries of developed and traditional democracies, the pre-elections silence does not last longer than 24 hours before commencement of the elections.

Electoral Administration

The elections held in Serbia were organised and carried out by the Republican Electoral Commission (RIK) and the voting boards appointed by the RIK. The RIK regulated by bylaw, the formation and responsibilities of its working bodies in municipalities; however their responsibility has been downgraded to the simple facilitation of the process.
Permanent composition of the bodies responsible for conducting the elections should comprise professionals, people outstanding in their expertise and skills; representatives of participants in the elections should make the extended part of the bodies for conducting the elections. However, the key criterion for the National Assembly when it appointed the members of RIK (and the same goes for RIK when it appointed of voting boards) was the party adherence. This is how the parliamentary parties, which are at the same time the participants in the elections, were represented in the bodies responsible for conducting the elections in a double manner.
The possibility of establishing professional and permanent bodies for carrying out the elections should be taken into consideration; this would also mean the improvement of skills of those responsible for the regular organisation and conducting of voting. 
Furthermore, the Law also provides the possibility to elect for the position of the President of RIK a judge from the Supreme Court, the court that as the second judicial instance rules upon complaints and assesses the legality of decisions of the electoral administration.

Voters' Register

Although the updating of voters' registers in the municipalities of Serbia has been substantially improved, particularly since 2001 when CeSID conducted the research of the manners of maintenance of the data on voters, some of the deficiencies still remain. Those deficiencies, however, could be surmounted through the centralisation of data on voters and centralisation of voters' register.
Moreover, yet another serious issue remains open, the one of keeping the data on voters living abroad. Out of one million voters who live abroad, only 30,000 opted to register for voting in some of the diplomatic and consular offices of Serbia. 
It is necessary to take into consideration the possibility of adopting complete rules on manners of maintenance of the voters' register, compiled into the single Law on Voters' Register.

Conclusion

Based upon all these, we come to the conclusion that the improvement of the electoral process in Serbia must be based upon the improvement of the legislation regulating different aspects of the process in the following areas:

1. Political parties (through the improvement of the Law on Political Parties);
2. Financing of political parties (through the improvement of the Law on Financing of Political Parties);
3. Voters' register (through the adoption of a separate Law on Voters' Register);
4. Electoral system, electoral administration and the procedure of conducting the elections (through the improvement of the Law on Election of Deputies).

Course of Voting

During the elections day CeSID monitors registered several dozens of irregularities in the voting process at the polling stations. The most frequent irregularities include: voting without the prior check of identity, voting on behalf of someone else, as well as group or family voting. Such irregularities were mostly registered in the southern Serbian municipalities, whereas the most frequent ones, in proportion with the number of voters, were registered in the Municipality of Presevo.
Registered irregularities can be (and were in some cases) the cause for objections to the RIK, as well as the cause for the appeal to the Supreme Court. Objection to the RIK and the appeal to the Supreme Court can be the cause for the rerun of voting at the polling stations where irregularities were noted and established. 
However, the general assessment remains that the irregularities were not serious or numerous to the extent that might influence the regularity of electoral process as a whole and thus the final outcome of the elections. 

Voters Turnout

The turnout in the elections exceeded all the pre-elections expectations. The right to vote was exercised by more than four million voters or more than 70 percent of voters who were able to vote. Such a high turnout indicates the extremely high level of voters' responsibility towards the state they live in. The ball is now in the court of political parties from which we expect to demonstrate in the upcoming negotiations the level of responsibility at least equal to the level demonstrated by the voters' behaviour on January 21st.