RIK annuls proclamation of the “Ćale ovo je za tebe – Petar Đurić” list: legal validity of 125 signatures in doubt

Serbia’s Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) this evening annulled the decision by which, on September 26, it had proclaimed the list “Ćale ovo je za tebe – Petar Đurić premijer Srbije”, submitted for the early parliamentary elections of October 25. At the evening session, which according to the newspaper Direktno.rs began at around 17:00, the 26 members present voted for the decision.

The submitters of the list, the citizens’ group “Ćale ovo je za tebe”, have a 48-hour deadline to correct the shortcomings, Direktno.rs reports. If the shortcomings are corrected within that deadline, the commission will continue the procedure and decide on proclaiming the electoral list; otherwise, RIK will take a decision refusing to proclaim the list.

The objection against the list was filed by voter Dragan Urosev from Belgrade, who raised doubts about the legal validity of part of the declarations of support. RIK deputy member and authorised proposer Milos Sreckovic said there is suspicion that the list does not have the required number of legally valid declarations, since of the 10,007 declarations that RIK had verified, 125 are suspected of not being legally valid, Direktno.rs writes.

Sreckovic nevertheless stressed that the submitter of the objection presents no concrete evidence for his suspicions of other irregularities, on which RIK could act. According to him, RIK must establish that the electoral list has shortcomings that constitute an obstacle to its proclamation. The decision comes 25 days before the early parliamentary elections of October 25.