Donor: Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Duration of the project: July – September 2000
According to the then Serbian laws on elections, the electoral commissions at the level of local ballot stations, electoral districts and the whole of the Republic of Serbia were composed by a nucleus of three to six members appointed by the government, to which political parties participating in the elections could add one member each. Given the fact that the government had at all elections held so far appointed only members of the ruling Socialist Party and its allies, or persons close to them, the majority of all commissions had been always slanted in favour of the regime.The representatives of opposition parties in electoral commissions were functioning properly only in larger urban agglomerations, where the opposition won at the local elections, but not in smaller towns and the countryside, where the government coalition claimed to be victorious. The assessment is that this was due to insufficient training both in rights and duties of members of polling boards and electoral commissions, as well as in their lack of experience with the tricks performed at previous elections.
The Belgrade Centre offered to all opposition-parties participants in the electoral process the following services:
- Publication of a user-friendly manual for members of electoral commissions. This included a comprehensible survey of electoral law and regulations, technical advice as to the procedure, but also a chapter on recorded manipulations and abuses and advice on how to prevent them. The Centre also prepared a translation of those materials for foreign observers.
- One-day seminars for members of opposition political parties who later acted as members of electoral commissions on all levels. The idea was to train a representative group of such persons throughout Serbia who later disseminated the manuals and skills gained at the seminars.
