Crta to Send 2,500 Observers to Serbia's October 25 Election
Crta's observer mission counts 2,500 members for Serbia's snap parliamentary election on October 25, with domestic observers facing an October 17 deadline to register with the RIK.
The Republic Election Commission (RIK) has up to three days from the moment the election is called to adopt the forms for submitting electoral lists, which starts the collection of signatures. The deadline for submitting lists is October 4, 20 days before election day, and by October 9 the RIK is to certify the consolidated electoral list. Domestic observers have until October 17 to register with the RIK, eight days before voters go to the polls on October 25.
That operational timeline was laid out by lawyer Pavle Dimitrijevic, a representative of the observer mission of the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (Crta), an independent, nonpartisan civil society organization. For this election, the mission will field 2,500 members, who will monitor both the campaign and the vote itself. On election day, observers will be deployed to a random, representative sample of 500 polling stations across the country.
Serbian News previously reported on Crta’s finding that 1,200 activities by public officials were recorded before the election was called. That figure now has a timeframe attached to it. According to Dimitrijevic, speaking to N1, the activities span the period from May through the end of August this year, not a longer stretch.
What the first report shows
“What we saw from May through the end of August is 1,200 activities by various public officials, every seventh of which had elements of clientelism, some serving to promote the SNS in one way or another, going as far as officials, through state organized events, openly calling for votes for a list that had not even been certified yet. So this is abuse of public resources, the use of public office to promote a party, and once again we are facing various confirmations that pressure is being applied in public enterprises, but also in the private sector, not only to secure safe votes but for the actual vote on election day.”
Dimitrijevic said, describing the period covered by the observer mission’s first report.
According to data Crta presented at the news conference, one in seven activities by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) recorded across Serbia had elements of clientelism, ranging from distributing aid packages to handing out home appliances. The organization has so far filed 53 criminal complaints, 26 of which concern election irregularities committed since December 2023.
Crta also tracked the implementation of recommendations issued after previous election cycles by observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (ODIHR). Of the 54 recommendations from 2023 and 2024, the organization says conditions have been created for the full implementation of eight, only one of which was a priority recommendation, and for the partial implementation of another 20.
A separate part of the report focused on the media landscape. Crta’s monitoring of the evening newscast Dnevnik 2 on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) found that 96 percent of the airtime devoted to political actors went to the ruling majority. Since January, the organization says, there have been nine major interventions in the media market, ranging from ownership changes at local and regional outlets to the shutdown or temporary suspension of programming at television stations that had reported critically on the government.
Institutions unprepared, Crta says
Dimitrijevic said institutions are entering the election process unprepared to apply the legal framework impartially and responsibly.
“There are several indicators of that. To this day, we have no formally established legal responsibility for anyone for all these irregularities, for the violence that occurred during the elections. That is why we say the institutions are unprepared.”
He told N1, commenting on the situation ahead of the snap parliamentary election.
Who may serve as an observer is set out in the organization’s own conditions. A Crta observer cannot simultaneously be a member of a polling board, whether in its standing or expanded composition, nor an active member of a political party, movement or citizens’ group taking part in the election. Applications are submitted directly to Crta, which then trains and accredits participants just before election day.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called the snap parliamentary election for Wednesday, October 25, after months of uncertainty over the date. In Dimitrijevic’s assessment, that date is for now the only one that is fully certain.
“There is still uncertainty about exactly which elections we will face this year, since the deadlines and the legal framework allow for the possibility that presidential, and perhaps even local, elections could also be called. The authorities will definitely have the final say on all of that. We have heard various announcements from the president, and we had experience from earlier election cycles of various electoral combinations being arranged around dates, which is why I say we will see which elections we end up having this year. For now, only this date, October 25, is fully certain for the snap parliamentary election.”
Dimitrijevic concluded, leaving open the question of whether October 25 will be the only election date this year, or whether presidential, and possibly local, elections could join it at some point.
