Kreni-promeni: Foreign Ministry representatives did not show up at the RIK working group on the diaspora

The Kreni-promeni movement announced that representatives of the Foreign Ministry did not show up today at the meeting of the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) working group on the diaspora, two days after they proposed that polling stations abroad open and close according to Serbia’s timetable, as Danas reports.

Under the ministry’s proposal, voting in Serbian consulates and embassies around the world would take place at the same time as in Serbia, which — the movement notes — would force many citizens to travel and vote at midnight, departing from the practice so far. “Is the Ministry running away from the public, or from responsibility for the proposal that people abroad vote at the same time as in Serbia, regardless of the fact that in most of the world it would be midnight at that time — a proposal that practically makes it harder for the citizens of Serbia in Australia, America, Asia and Africa to exercise their right to vote?”, Kreni-promeni asks.

The movement accuses the ministry’s diplomats of being in the front rows of rallies and the front seats of buses when they have to go to party gatherings, but hiding when they have to answer before the RIK and the public for shameful proposals.

The issue of diaspora voting has become one of the hottest points of the campaign for the 25 October elections: on Saturday, the BBC reported that the diaspora is registering in record numbers, while the Student List declared yesterday that the authorities “will not succeed in preventing the diaspora from removing them from power” — developments our newspaper has reported on.