At the sitting of 13 May, the members of the Committee on Interethnic Relations met with representatives of the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights to discuss the current issues concerning the upcoming elections for ethnic minority national councils (manner of organisation, schedule and number of polling stations).

Committee Chairman, Miletic Mihajlovic pointed out the problems that had arisen in the matter of establishing the number of polling stations for the national council elections. He stressed that it would be logical, if these elections were comparable to general elections (republican, presidential and local self-government elections), that every populated place that has one or more polling stations in the general election has at least one polling station in the national council elections, of course in compliance with article 68 of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities. Joining several distant settlements into one polling station is unacceptable according to him, if they have 100 registered voters. He estimated that the Central Electoral Commission’s recommendation to create polling stations for 500 voters was good, but added that a system of savings and rationalisation cannot be a criterion that might prevent ethnic minorities to vote in the elections for national councils, because that could compromise the regularity of the elections themselves.

The Ministry representatives briefed the Committee members on the competencies of the Central Electoral Commission in establishing polling stations and polling areas in the elections for national councils of national minorities. They stressed that Friday, 14 May, was the last day to determine the number of polling stations and areas. According to them, the elections will have 900 polling stations in 42 polling areas, and the average number of registered voters per polling station is 460. They also stressed that the Committee Chairman’s suggestions were adopted where possible. They added that 15 municipalities have less than 40 registered voters, and that the same number of municipalities have no registered voters, so that if a voter registers they would be referred to the polling station in the nearest municipality. They obliged the voters by opening polling stations in places where their number was fewer than 100, and where it seemed pointless for the voters to travel too far from their place of residence in order to vote. The Ministry representatives also pointed out their difficulties with the Roma ethnic minority because its members are not always concentrated within municipalities as an ethnic minority. They stressed that a unified voters list was created for the elections.

Deputy Vitomir Mihajlovic pointed out the problem of dispersion in Roma ethnic minority in Serbia, emphasising the importance of placing the polling stations for national councils where the members of the Roma ethnic minority vote in the general elections. He appealed to the Ministry representatives to establish more polling stations for members of the Roma ethnic minority so that people would not travel too far in order to vote.

In the continuation, the officials went on to discuss specific cases in certain municipalities in Serbia, and deputy Petar Kuntic warned of the problems that might arise regarding the deadlines for the submission of signatures and complete documentation.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairman, Miletic Mihajlovic.