Election signatures in Serbia: municipal offices for regime parties, notaries for students and opposition

Data from the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) on the certification of signatures for electoral lists for the October 25 snap parliamentary elections, analyzed by political scientist Boban Stojanović, reveal a stark difference between regime-adjacent lists and opposition ones: the place where signatures were certified changes radically depending on the list’s ties to power.

The “Aleksandar Vučić – Ujedinjena Srbija” list collected 223,933 signatures, of which 181,243 — 80.94% — were certified at municipal offices, 41,938 (18.73%) at public notaries and only 752 (0.34%) in courts. The SPS list “Ivica Dačić – Faktor stabilnosti” collected 21,266 signatures, with 66.31% certified at municipal offices.

The records are held by minority lists and parties closest to the government: “Savez vojvođanskih Mađara – dr Pastor Balint” (9,533 signatures, 8,661 or 90.85% at municipal offices, 0 in courts) and “Ruska stranka – Srbija u BRIKS-u – Slobodan Nikolić” (5,312 signatures, 5,139 or 96.74% at offices — the absolute record of all lists). Rasim Ljajić’s list “Rasim Ljajić – Ljudski (SDP – CDP)” collected 8,053 signatures, 7,015 or 87.11% at municipal offices. Meanwhile, Usame Zukorlić’s list (6,723 signatures) was certified 59.50% at offices and 820 signatures or 12.20% in courts — the highest court share of all lists.

In contrast, “Studentska lista – Studenti pobeđuju” collected 69,947 signatures, of which 54,505 or 77.92% were certified at public notaries and only 15,442 (22.08%) at municipal offices, 0 in courts, gathered in 76 municipalities and cities — because, as the students and the opposition warned, most notaries and municipal certifiers were unavailable to them. The “Evropska Srbija – Marinika Tepić – Zdravko Ponoš” list collected 10,130 valid signatures: 38.34% at municipal offices, 61.25% at notaries and 0.40% in courts.

The Crta observer mission recorded cases of signature certification without the voter’s presence, as well as pressure on notaries and citizens. According to Stojanović, public notaries refuse to certify false signatures, and to solve the problem Crta proposes restoring the 2020 legal solution: only public notaries should certify signatures for electoral lists, as Nova.rs reports.