A Blow
Against Minorities
Press release
Belgrade, April 10, 2008
The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
strongly protests against the decision whereby the Republican Electoral
Commission, only one month before the scheduled elections, annulled the
rule providing that signatures by 3,000 citizens suffice for submission
of minority electoral lists. The prior rule was advantageous to minority
parties as it made it possible for them to actively partake in Serbia's
parliamentary life. Subsequent changes of electoral rules once again
testify that Serbia lacks a coherent minority policy. Its electoral
legislation is obviously prone to voluntaristic interventions and
partisan interests.
Despite the fact that the Constitutional Court of
Serbia acted by law, its decision, made at the initiative of the Serbian
Radical Party, clearly plays into the hands of that party now struggling
for every parliamentary seat in attempt to finally overrule Serbia.
It was the duty of the Republican Electoral Commission
to interpret electoral legislation well in advance and thus enable
minority parties to start collecting newly prescribed 10,000 signatures
in due time. Many of them will not be capable to compose their electoral
lists in so short time, which will factually remove them from Serbia's
political life.
The Albanian minority has already announced that it
would not be in the position to collect additional signatures in such
short period. This latest move will thus be yet another testimony that
Albanians are unwelcome as a minority community in Serbia and still
treated in the context of settlement of the Kosovo question. And,
bearing in mind the fact that Serbia would not recognize Kosovo's
independence, that move also indicates that the official Belgrade needs
a neuralgic point to instrumentalize it in its future relations with
Kosovo and for further distancing from the European Union.
HCHRS |