Mass Protests for Election Annulment & more – 28th Dec 2023

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 28th of December twenty twenty three. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

On Sunday the 24th, Serbian opposition parties and a students' group, known as “Fight” held an anti-government protest in Belgrade after the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, claimed the parliamentary elections were riddled with irregularities. During the protest, the attendees demanded the annulment of the Belgrade city election, accusing Vucic and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, of electoral fraud. The protest resulted in two injured police officers and around forty detained protesters. While the protest was taking place, president Vucic addressed the nation outside of the Belgrade city hall, where he called the protesters “thugs” and accused them of attempting to destabilize the state.

Two weeks ago, Serbia held early parliamentary elections in which SNS secured around 120 seats in the Parliament. After the elections, the official monitoring organizations reported numerous cases of electoral fraud, mostly in the Belgrade region.

Prior to Sunday’s protest and after numerous international condemnations, on Thursday the 21st, president Vucic addressed the public on television and stated that a certain country had interfered in Serbia’s parliamentary elections. While Vucic did not specify the country, he labeled it as “important”. He said that the Serbian authorities are preparing a letter on the interference of said country in Serbia’s electoral process, adding that the authorities will publish the outline of the charges in January.

Recall that just days after the monitoring organizations reported election irregularities, Germany condemned Serbia for election fraud, labeling such findings as unacceptable for an EU candidate country. The US State Department has also called on Serbia to address the alleged election fraud.

Responding to the request of the US State Department, Vucic announced that on Saturday the 30th, Serbia will repeat the parliamentary elections in certain areas at thirty polling stations, following the immediate protests from the opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence. Serbia's national electoral commission ordered the re-run of the elections on Wednesday the 20th, and said that around 12,000 people will be eligible to vote in them.

However, the coalition said on Tuesday the 26th that it will not run in the Saturday’s partial parliamentary elections. They reiterated their call for the election annulment, adding that the partial re-run of the elections will not rectify the injustice of the polls. The Serbia Against Violence coalition also said that their observers will not be monitoring the repeat elections.

In other news about politics,

On Monday the 25th, Serbia’s government adopted the decision to officially recognize Kosovo’s license plates as of January, allowing the vehicles with Kosovo’s license plates to freely move in Serbia’s territory. Prior to this, they were obliged to cover the state emblem with a sticker to enter Serbia. The same stood for drivers with Serbian license plates entering the territory of Kosovo.

EU spokesman Peter Stano said that the EU welcomes Serbia’s decision to recognize Kosovo’s license plates and added that it is a positive step in the implementation of the Agreements made between the two countries in order to normalize mutual relations. Stano also said that the EU expects Kosovo to likewise officially recognize Serbia’s license plates.

However, Kosovo’s opposition is trying to stray from the EU's proposed path to normalization.

Kosovo’s opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, criticized the draft-statute for the establishment of the Association of Serbian Municipalities, or CSM, a body which would comprise four Serb-majority northern municipalities in Kosovo. LDK stated that the draft statute goes beyond Kosovo's constitutional framework, advising the Constitutional Court to review it. Kosovo’s government, however, is defending the draft statute for the Association of Serbian-Majority Municipalities, highlighting that it is the best proposal the EU has offered to Kosovo so far in the normalization process. Kosovo’s FM Donika Gervalla-Schwarz noted that the draft-statute is not excellent, but that the formation of the CSM does not pose a threat to the country.

If established, the CSM in Kosovo would have a president, vice-president, assembly, council, coat-of-arms and a flag, and it would have a full overview of the economic development, education, health, urban and rural planning areas.

Earlier we mentioned the parliamentary elections and their effect on the general public in Serbia, but many economists believe that Serbia’s economy is bound to suffer from the election results. Economist Sasa Djogovic predicted that there will be a long wait until the formation of the new government, adding that the situation directly increases Serbia’s non-commercial risk. He also said that the unrest in Serbia which the elections created will poorly affect the country’s credit rating and debt. Nebojsa Atanackovic, the honorary president of the Union of Employers, said that he expects the new government to pay more attention to domestic companies, since their profit stays within the country.

Before the snap parliamentary elections, the National Alliance for Local Economic Development researched the correlation between political events and GDP growth, and reported that the average economic growth rate was six times higher in years where there were no elections.

Still on the economy,

Last week, the government passed an urgent amendment to the Law on the Employment of Foreigners, which introduces the concept of a single work-residence permit. Before the amendment, foreigners that wanted to work and live in Serbia had to have two separate permits for work and residence. The amendment will also completely digitize the application procedure by allowing foreigners to submit requests for the work-residence permit online. Once approved, foreigners will receive the new work-residence permit as a biometric document. The amendment will be in force as of February twenty twenty four.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, or BIRN, together with Freedom House’s digital rights research team, reported that in twenty twenty three, the Balkan region has seen a rise in the number of digital rights violations. On Thursday the 21st, the representatives of both BIRN and Freedom House said that the most common violations included hate speech and discrimination, digital manipulation and computer fraud. The speakers noted that the regional disputes, such as Kosovo-Serbia relations as well as the war in Ukraine, increased the number of digital rights violations in the Balkans, most of which were cases of discrimination and the spreading of misinformation. Tijana Uzelac, a BIRN Serbia journalist, said that there have been more than a hundred registered digital rights violation cases in Serbia in twenty twenty three. She added that the biggest spike was seen after two mass shootings in May, and that most of the digital rights violations cases were threats and security endangerment.

Another spike that Serbia documented was the repeated increase of air pollutants, ranking Serbia the 5th most polluted country in Europe. Last week, the worst air quality was registered in the city of Cacak, whose air quality index was 230, the number of harmful particles exceeded the healthy amount by almost forty times. After Cacak, the most polluted places were Novi Sad, Nis and certain parts of Belgrade. The only place in Serbia where the air quality passed as good was Barajevo.

While many factors influence Serbia’s air quality, the most well known causes for the increase of harmful air particles are Serbia’s reliance on lignite and coal-fuelled power stations, as well as road traffic in the more urban areas.

On a brighter note, president Vucic announced on Wednesday the 27th the start of the construction of the biotech campus called B104, and added that his goal is to make the campus functional within three years. The B104 project, whose budget is around 450 million dollars, is aimed to develop the technology which will allow scientists in Serbia to collaborate with private partners from the pharmacy, genetics and medicine fielfs. Serbian PM Brnabic said that the idea is to make the B104 campus useful to professors, researchers and students, and added that it will feature a sports center, an accommodation center and interactive museum. The Serbian Ministry of Science noted that the B104 campus is Serbia’s largest single investment in science.

Aaand that's it for this week!

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