RIK: 'Izbor Naroda' List Short 67 Signatures

The Republic Election Commission (RIK) adopted a decision today, at its 21st session, ordering the Narodna Srbija coalition to submit another 67 voter signatures within 48 hours for the “Izbor Naroda” electoral list, so that the list reaches the legal minimum of 10,000 signatures required for it to be certified for the parliamentary elections called for October 25. The session was chaired by RIK president Vladimir Dimitrijevic.

The decision concerns the list “Izbor Naroda, Miroslav Miki Aleksic, Milos Parandilovic, Aleksandar Jovanovic Cuta,” made up of the People’s Movement of Serbia, the New Face of Serbia and the Ecological Uprising Movement, joined together in the Narodna Srbija coalition. The coalition submitted the list to RIK on September 15, a day before the session at which the shortfall in signatures was established.

List Submitted, Then Withdrawn

Shortly after submitting the list, coalition representatives announced that they were withdrawing it and would instead back the “Student List, Students Are Winning.” Miroslav Aleksic, president of the People’s Movement of Serbia, said at a press conference outside the RIK building that the decision to withdraw was made for the sake of unity.

“We submitted the list, but the decision of our Narodna Srbija coalition is that, for the sake of a referendum atmosphere, we withdraw our list, and that this be our contribution to unity,” Aleksic said.

Despite the announced withdrawal, RIK still processed the submitted list at its September 16 session and found that it lacked the signatures needed for certification. The Srpske vesti portal previously reported on the coalition’s decision to withdraw the Izbor Naroda list and back the students.

How Many Signatures Are Missing

RIK member Zoran Lukic said that of the total number of citizen signatures of support submitted, verification found 9,933 to be legally valid.

“Of a total of 10,293 submitted citizen signatures of support, verification found 9,933 signatures to be valid,” Lukic said.

Sources differ on the total number of signatures submitted. Lukic’s statement, also reported by 24sedam and Insajder, cites 10,293 signatures. N1, citing the Beta news agency, reports that 10,235 signatures were submitted. Both figures, once the 9,933 legally valid signatures are subtracted, produce the same shortfall of 67 signatures that RIK cited in its decision.

There is also a discrepancy in what the coalition itself claimed about the volume of material it collected. According to Insajder, Aleksic said the coalition had gathered and submitted “ten and a half thousand certified signatures,” a figure higher than what RIK acknowledged as submitted at the session. According to the same source, signatures were collected at more than seventy locations across Serbia.

When the Deadline Starts

According to the text published on RIK’s website, the coalition has 48 hours from the publication of the decision on the Commission’s website to remedy the shortfall. None of the outlets that covered the session, not N1, not 24sedam, not Insajder, states explicitly from what moment the deadline runs, so RIK’s own website is the only source for that detail.

Until the deadline expires, it remains open whether the coalition, whose representatives have publicly announced the list’s withdrawal, will act on the decision at all and submit the missing 67 signatures.

Deadlines Ahead of October 25

For the elections called for October 25, RIK has set the deadline for submitting electoral lists at October 4, while the voter register closes on October 9. So far, RIK has certified five electoral lists, and “Izbor Naroda” is one of those still waiting to meet the requirements.