ProGlas Heads to Switzerland: Zurich and Geneva Rallies

The ProGlas initiative announced on August 1 that it will bring its campaign before the Serbian diaspora in Switzerland this September, with two rallies a day apart: September 19 in Zurich and September 20 in Geneva. The events are organized together with the Assembly in the Diaspora, with support from the association “Geneva and Lausanne with the Protests in Serbia,” and continue the “Without You There Is No Us” campaign launched in May this year.

The statement was published at 7:04 p.m. and lays out two concrete requests for people living outside Serbia: to support the campaign with donations, and to turn out at the polls on election day. In the same text, ProGlas described the coming election cycle as decisive.

“Many events in Serbia have been called turning points. About the upcoming elections, whenever the authorities dare to call them, it can truly be said that they are decisive. After them, Serbia will not be what it is today,” ProGlas said in the statement.

The phrase “whenever the authorities dare to call them” is not a rhetorical flourish. Parliamentary elections in Serbia are called by the president, which puts the calendar in the hands of the very side the initiative is calling to account. That is why the organizers are working with dates they control themselves, the rally dates, not the date of the vote.

From Zrenjanin to Zurich

Switzerland is not the first stop. Before it, ProGlas says, it held rallies, musical and stage events, and a series of talks with the diaspora in Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. The three German cities were chosen by the same logic now applied to the two Swiss ones: wherever the Serbian community is densest. Zurich covers the German speaking part of the country, Geneva the French speaking part, and the back to back scheduling signals a single trip rather than two separate events.

The format itself is nothing new for the initiative. ProGlas held its first rally in Zrenjanin on November 13, 2023, and a hall full of people has been its basic tool ever since, both inside Serbia and beyond it. What is different three years later is that the same tool is now being brought to voters who are physically farthest from any polling station.

Why does the deadline matter more than the election date for the diaspora?

Voting from abroad is not an automatic right that activates on its own. A voter living outside Serbia is not simply placed on the list for a diplomatic or consular mission, they must request that the single voter register record that they will vote abroad. That request has a deadline, and it falls before the voter register closes, meaning weeks before election day itself.

That is what sets the campaign’s pace. Once elections are called, only a short window remains in which the application can still be filed, and the September dates in Zurich and Geneva fall right in the period when the calling of elections is expected. A rally in a hall only matters if someone signs up afterward, and that, not the number of filled seats, is the measure by which the campaign’s success will be judged.

What is being asked of people in the diaspora

ProGlas has reduced its message to two steps. The first is support now, including financial support, the second is turning out at the polls when the time comes.

• support for the “Without You There Is No Us” campaign, including donations
• registering to vote at a diplomatic or consular mission
• turning out at polling stations abroad on election day

“What it becomes depends on us, its citizens, wherever we live, whatever profession we practice, whatever we believe in, whatever generation we belong to,” the invitation states, adding that the campaign was launched by ProGlas together with the Assembly in the Diaspora and local diaspora organizations.

Elections have not yet been called and no date is known. For now, only two dates from this announcement are certain: September 19 and 20, Zurich then Geneva.