Milos Jovanovic: Notaries Unavailable to Certify Signatures

The Authentic Right coalition, made up of the New DSS and the Monarchists, Movement for the Kingdom of Serbia, announced on the evening of September 11 that public notaries, along with municipal and city certifiers, are unavailable to certify signatures backing its electoral list. The statement was carried by the Beta news agency, and several local outlets picked it up the following day, September 12. The coalition frames this as an obstacle planted ahead of the election, while the ruling side and the relevant authorities had not responded to the accusation by the time this article was published.

“The latest obstruction of the work of public notaries, as well as municipal and city certifiers, amounts to direct administrative terror,” the coalition’s statement reads.

What the coalition claims

According to the statement, certifiers who should be validating signatures for the “Authentic Right, dr Milos Jovanovic” list are, as the coalition puts it, unavailable for various reasons, while the ruling side allegedly has far greater capacity at its disposal over the same period:

“While the ruling party and its satellites are provided with hundreds of notaries in the field within a few hours for express signature collection, for the electoral list ‘Authentic Right, dr Milos Jovanovic’, certifiers are ‘busy’, ‘on sick leave’ or have their ‘schedules full’,” the coalition states.

This line is the central claim of the statement, and it refers specifically to the availability of certifiers during the period when the coalition began collecting signatures, on September 11. The statement does not put a figure on how large the gap in the number of engaged notaries actually is, and independent verification was not possible before this article went to publication.

The coalition goes further, describing the entire situation as systemic pressure. “Through this kind of institutional capture, the regime has once again turned the election process into a farce,” the Authentic Right said, adding that “the freedom and will of Serbia’s citizens cannot be locked away in notary drawers.”

Who is behind the list

Authentic Right is the name under which the New DSS and the Monarchists entered this election cycle, after previously running together as part of the NADA coalition. Signature collection began on September 11, and the list needs at least 10,000 certified citizen signatures to be formally registered. The 021 portal notes that the Monarchists and the New DSS, running together in earlier elections, had drawn support of around five percent of voters, without specifying which election cycle that referred to.

The list’s top candidate is Milos Jovanovic, president of the New DSS, after whom the list is named. The Monarchists’ co-president is Dusan Radosavljevic. Presenting the list, Jovanovic said a change of government on its own would not be enough. “Serbia does not just need a change of government, it needs a change of policy,” Jovanovic said. Radosavljevic addressed right-wing voters more directly. “We call on right-wing voters to support their own. In this election they have a clear choice, the ‘Authentic Right’,” Radosavljevic said.

The program the coalition highlights calls for removing Aleksandar Vucic from power and changing course toward a sovereign national policy, protecting interests in Kosovo and Metohija and in Republika Srpska, and cooperating with the European Union without Serbia joining it.

Silence from officials

This is the first claim by any opposition list in this election cycle that it has been physically prevented from certifying signatures, which sets it apart from earlier complaints about deadlines and forms at the Republic Election Commission. We had not previously reported on this coalition, nor on a similar complaint from any other list.

None of the available sources include a response from the Serbian Chamber of Public Notaries, the relevant authorities, or the ruling list to the claims made. No specific notary or certifier has been named, nor has it been stated in which city the disputed cases were reported. A response was sought but had not arrived by the time this article was published.

It remains to be seen whether Authentic Right will manage to collect all 10,000 signatures needed to register the list before the deadline, and whether the Chamber of Public Notaries or the Republic Election Commission will respond to the claims of unavailable certifiers before that deadline passes.