Elections to Be Held Under Worse Conditions Than in 2023
The elections, announced for 25 October, will be held under significantly worse conditions than those in 2023, despite several amendments to laws relevant to the electoral process.
With regard to some of the key ODIHR recommendations, there has been no attempt whatsoever to introduce changes, either to the legislation or to the practices of state institutions, the ruling party, or public officials.
This applies above all to the recommendation concerning pressure on voters and the pre-election distribution of money to various categories of citizens.
The revised budget allocates almost EUR 1 billion for this purchase of political support, compared with approximately EUR 430 million distributed ahead of the 2023 elections.
Despite a statement by outgoing Prime Minister Đuro Macut that the authorities had “made enormous efforts in the previous period to further improve electoral conditions and legislation,” the local elections held in 2024, 2025 and 2026 were marked by pressure on voters and an unprecedented blurring of the boundaries between the ruling party and the state. This intertwining intensified during the current campaign, even before the elections were formally called.
Recent amendments to the Law on Prevention of Corruption will do little to regulate the campaign activities of public officials. The new restrictions apply only to certain officials and only to the final part of the campaign, while exceptions have been left in place that make the rules easy to circumvent.
There have been some changes regarding campaign financing, but they are insufficient. For example, a spending limit has finally been introduced, but at an absurdly high level - EUR 6 million for parliamentary elections, which is twice as much as in countries comparable to Serbia. Moreover, nothing has been done to clarify and strengthen sanctions for violations of the Law on Financing Political Activities and the Law on Prevention of Corruption, or to prescribe sanctions for all forms of violations of the rules.
One point is particularly important, however: even if the laws were perfect, they would be of little value in a situation where key institutions - the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and public prosecutors’ offices - do not proactively investigate violations, fail to establish all relevant facts even when complaints are filed, or issue “warnings” instead of initiating proceedings to impose sanctions.
Finally, some amendments to the legislation will have adverse consequences for the electoral environment and make it easier to create “crowding” on electoral lists and at polling stations. These include changes concerning the collection of signatures and the abolition of the requirement to deposit an electoral bond.
Taking all this into account, the claims in the Government’s explanatory statement accompanying the proposal to dissolve Parliament - that electoral conditions have been further and significantly improved, taking into account the views of political actors, and “in particular the ODIHR recommendations” - are not sufficiently supported by the facts.
