Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
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00:00:57Good evening, this is another Red Line, I am Marina Fratucan. The Law on
00:01:01the Election of National Deputies, local elections
00:01:04and the Constitutional Court, among other things, with the possibility for one voter
00:01:08to support multiple lists. Are Petrošinović's laws
00:01:11fulfilling the ODIHR recommendations or are these cosmetic changes that do
00:01:14not contribute to preventing abuses of the electoral process in Serbia?
00:01:18Will electronic voter identification and ballot
00:01:22box scanners reduce electoral irregularities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or is
00:01:25the existence of a central election commission a violation of the electoral law
00:01:28of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Does the new electoral law of Croatia
00:01:32correct the inequality in the weight of votes and thus make the electoral process
00:01:35more legitimate, or are political pressures on
00:01:38institutions, and sometimes on voters, still more dominant than
00:01:42changes in electoral laws in all countries of the region that would make
00:01:46the processes more transparent and credible, and how in
00:01:49such circumstances can trust be restored among citizens in the electoral process
00:01:53as the greatest act of democracy? About electoral conditions in the countries of the region
00:01:57tonight on Red Line, we have Sofija Mandić, a lawyer from the Center for Judicial
00:02:00Research Cepris, Darijo Jovanović from the Pod Lupom Coalition, Ivan
00:02:04Rimac, professor of law and political analyst. Good evening
00:02:06everyone. Good evening. Good evening. So,
00:02:10it's been a somewhat tumultuous week in Serbia, in the assembly
00:02:13a set of, so to speak, electoral laws
00:02:16and amendments to electoral laws are being considered, which should
00:02:20enable Serbia to receive that package from the European
00:02:23Union, to restore voters' trust in the electoral
00:02:27process. However, we have seen that this is not entirely the case,
00:02:30there are various reactions from opposition representatives and experts
00:02:34to this set of laws. I announced four
00:02:37that should be changed, but here, Ms.
00:02:41Mandić, you are intensely involved in these issues and it would seem that you
00:02:44do not quite agree with the idea of the representatives
00:02:48of SNS, in fact, now we see Petrešinović's laws, we had
00:02:51Mrdić's because of which Serbia, it is said,
00:02:55is not frozen, but let's say, stopped with this new tranche
00:02:59of funds from the European Union, but what is important for us here in these areas and
00:03:02especially for voters is to somehow restore that trust in the
00:03:06electoral process, so you are skeptical, you even said
00:03:10that it could legalize all those illegalities that have existed
00:03:14until now, so what awaits us with what we are seeing this week
00:03:17in the assembly? Yes, well, let's say, since we are talking in
00:03:21this regional context with
00:03:23colleagues from Croatia and Bosnia and
00:03:26Herzegovina, that Serbia, unfortunately, in these previous 14
00:03:30years, lost free elections, we once had them,
00:03:34now we no longer have them, it has
00:03:36now become a serious political issue, not only
00:03:40internal but also international, as you said,
00:03:43progress in the area of elections is
00:03:46linked to the use of European Union funds
00:03:50and generally to the process of European
00:03:54integration, so not only for this financial part, but also
00:03:56generally. When it comes to these laws, I will say
00:04:00what the problem is, but again
00:04:03vote. When they vote on I say, due to the regional context and for the sake of my colleagues, let me just mention that the
00:04:07ODIHR recommendations, which I think are a reference point for all of us,
00:04:10so according to that common OSCE methodology,
00:04:14all our elections are observed, and
00:04:16Serbia received, after the last parliamentary elections,
00:04:1925 recommendations, of which seven are priority, and they
00:04:23primarily relate to practice, so everything we
00:04:26are talking about now, when we talk about changing laws, is actually
00:04:30just an attempt by the authorities here
00:04:33to divert attention from practice to norms, so
00:04:37those recommendations that relate to potential changes in laws are
00:04:40really a small part of what Serbia is
00:04:43recommended to do to restore free elections. We, by practice, when
00:04:47I say we, I mean the Republic of Serbia, its state bodies, we hardly
00:04:51deal with practice at all, state bodies
00:04:54are quite consistent in violating electoral legislation,
00:04:57I say then when it's time for...
00:05:00European integration, for withdrawing funds, then it is said, well, let's
00:05:04change the laws again,
00:05:07what is now in the procedure, I have already
00:05:10stated in Serbia in the local context,
00:05:14that it is only about cosmetic changes, in
00:05:17my opinion, but that it is about a potential worsening
00:05:21of electoral conditions through changes in laws, and we really often see in Serbia that
00:05:25international recommendations are used to
00:05:28not improve things, but to set them back, and
00:05:32two key things that
00:05:35will lead to such an outcome is actually
00:05:39the principle of one person, more signatures. Until now, we had
00:05:42the signing of electoral lists for candidacies, where one person could
00:05:46only sign one list. Now that will
00:05:50change if these changes are adopted. So that's one thing that was
00:05:53subject to abuses in previous election
00:05:57cycles, and the other thing is actually the abolition
00:06:01of any mechanisms by which
00:06:04minority electoral lists would be reviewed, i.e.,
00:06:08their minority status, whether
00:06:11that privileged position of minority lists, because they
00:06:15collect much fewer signatures and need much fewer votes for
00:06:18one mandate, so whether these minority lists
00:06:21are potentially being abused by some groups. So this is
00:06:25now literally being removed from the law, and the
00:06:28number, the circle of those who can run as
00:06:31minority representatives, including groups of citizens
00:06:35yes, now we have said what is problematic,
00:06:38what is not there, which was pointed out in the assembly is that...
00:06:42official campaign, voter list, REM or what is
00:06:46most important, somehow pressures on voters and even
00:06:49violence, which we have actually witnessed in Serbia for several years,
00:06:53and intensified in the last year. That's right,
00:06:57and so maybe just in this first part, let's reiterate
00:07:00what the European Parliament said about the elections in
00:07:04Serbia in February 2024, so
00:07:07it's about some kind of need to change some minor things,
00:07:11the European Parliament already
00:07:14concluded that elections in Serbia
00:07:17take place by systematically abusing institutions and
00:07:21media to establish
00:07:24the advantage of the ruling party, so it's about systemic,
00:07:27serious structural flaws that have been built
00:07:31over these 14 years that have led to these
00:07:35truly numerous, incredibly serious recommendations. When you
00:07:39look at contaminated...
00:07:42"every phase, so from candidacy to
00:07:45decision-making on legal remedies, there is practically not a single
00:07:49phase of the electoral procedure with which we do not have a problem.
00:07:52Somewhere, it seems to me, it is important for me to say, that
00:07:56here, in our country, it is still considered, unfortunately,
00:07:59that improving electoral conditions or
00:08:03achieving the true will of the voters is some
00:08:06activity that happens on election day. We all
00:08:10get together and we are all at the polling stations and we take the minutes of
00:08:14the work of the polling committees. That is a much more complex job
00:08:17and for some things we as
00:08:21election observers or members of election commissions, by the way, I am also
00:08:24a member of the republican election commission, or members of polling
00:08:28committees, we absolutely cannot do anything
00:08:31without any systemic intervention, primarily when it comes to
00:08:35the voter list and the media. And here, just as
00:08:38an illustration of that terrible media image and what...
00:08:42It seems to me that it is not discussed enough in the last parliamentary
00:08:45elections, the ratio in the media was
00:08:48such that the ruling party and its coalition partners
00:08:52occupied 80% of the media space,
00:08:55the opposition 20%, and of those 20%
00:08:59of the opposition, in 19%
00:09:02of cases it was presented negatively, so only in
00:09:051% of that piece that belongs to the opposition, only one
00:09:09percent was positive, so even if everything else
00:09:12is fine, it's not. Only that data shows
00:09:16how much, how much unfair any
00:09:19competition is led by those who are running on the opposition
00:09:23side. So this, in short, was the picture of
00:09:27Serbia, pre-election Serbia. Serbia is still waiting for the date
00:09:30of the elections. There were announcements for various church holidays
00:09:34that it would be Đurđe Davidovdan, well, Vidovdan has not arrived yet, but
00:09:37we will see if we will find out when these elections will actually be, but Bosnia
00:09:41and Herzegovina. "recently received the date for general elections,
00:09:45it was somewhat announced that it would be in the autumn, October 4th, right?
00:09:49is the date when general elections should be held.
00:09:52Now, it seems like a rather alarming situation in Serbia, but at least according
00:09:56to the media reports, it seems that better days are coming for Bosnia and Herzegovina,
00:10:00a new era, new technologies for democracy and
00:10:03so on. First, let's say that this is electronic voter
00:10:07identification, ballot box scanners, everything sounds
00:10:10quite sci-fi, so to speak, at least when it comes to
00:10:14our region here. We in Serbia are fighting for voters
00:10:17not to be beaten at polling stations. You will have this
00:10:20total electronics which should lead to truly
00:10:24transparent elections, at least that's what they say. Now, is that really the case, Mr.
00:10:28Jovanović?
00:10:30Well, we will have better elections than we had, that is definitely
00:10:34Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the situation
00:10:37in many countries of the region, at least those that are not
00:10:40members of the European Union, but want to
00:10:43become so, did not have completely free and
00:10:46fair elections. We had a lot of problems in the electoral
00:10:49process. What we have now is that
00:10:53after 12 years of intensive work,
00:10:56advocacy, we will have electronic voter
00:11:00identification scanners at all polling stations. This will prevent
00:11:03proven electoral fraud and irregularities in the form of double voting,
00:11:07voting for deceased persons, voting for those who did not go to the polls, but
00:11:11much more importantly, fraud after 7 PM, i.e., after
00:11:14the closing of polling stations, in the form of using unused
00:11:17ballots, that is, inflating the turnout
00:11:20of votes for certain political
00:11:23subjects. So... the scanner will prevent
00:11:26adding votes especially on
00:11:30preferential votes, that is, on open lists and
00:11:33invalidation, i.e., annulment of votes for political
00:11:37opponents. 83% of citizens of Bosnia
00:11:40and Herzegovina, according to our latest research, support the introduction of new
00:11:43technologies, as a way to combat proven electoral fraud and
00:11:47irregularities. We collected over 100,000
00:11:50signatures for a citizen's petition in a period of 45
00:11:53days in 2022 for the introduction of new electoral technologies, and that is
00:11:57finally happening. We had a lot of political obstructions in the process
00:12:01of introducing new technologies. Political parties actually
00:12:05did not want new technologies to be
00:12:08introduced, even though in many countries where new technologies exist, and
00:12:12they exist in 96 countries worldwide, in 15 out of 27 EU member
00:12:16states, it actually represents a historical and
00:12:19national project. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, this happened not
00:12:22thanks to the state, but despite the state. Mhm, but nevertheless,
00:12:26it represents a huge victory for citizens and actually
00:12:29a prerequisite for us to have at least on election day free
00:12:33and fair elections. So the issue of technologies all this time for us
00:12:36is not a question of technical improvements in elections, but a question
00:12:40of fundamental, that is, improvements in a democratic
00:12:43sense, and the question of new technologies,
00:12:46if you will, is also a question of political, but I would
00:12:50say human dignity, because what we
00:12:53want, we are not interested in the results of voting, but we are very interested
00:12:57in those results reflecting the true electoral will of the citizens. This was
00:13:01largely not the case until now. We
00:13:03had individuals and political
00:13:06entities who came to power through electoral fraud, that is, criminal acts.
00:13:09And when someone comes to power through a criminal act, that is no longer
00:13:13a politician, it is a criminal. You mentioned here that it's on
00:13:17election day. Many, in any case, the days before the elections are important.
00:13:21We mentioned them here in Serbia, and we will later touch upon Bosnia and Herzegovina in
00:13:24that pre-election period. What interests me, since we're already talking about technology, is another
00:13:28question related to technology. If I understood correctly, after
00:13:32the voting ends, so the scanners will
00:13:35output that number, something is entered into the application. If
00:13:39the numbers don't match, it will be
00:13:43done multiple times, but in the end, as they say, manual counting can
00:13:46ultimately decide. Did I understand correctly or not?
00:13:50Yes, but that is really the ultimate outcome, so what is very important
00:13:54is that the traditional method of voting does not change, so voters
00:13:57still come to the polling station. This time they are identified not only
00:14:01by personal documents which are scanned this time,
00:14:05i.e., the MRZ code on the back of
00:14:09the document is taken, but also a fingerprint is taken,
00:14:12which is actually the best way of identification. That fingerprint
00:14:16is also checked in real
00:14:19time and matches
00:14:22the database of the State Agency for Identification documents, and only
00:14:25then can a voter proceed to
00:14:28a paper ballot, they mark the political subject and candidate as
00:14:32before. Before that ballot is placed in the ballot box, it will be
00:14:36scanned. All images of all ballots will be saved
00:14:40on the scanner, and the scanner can process the voting results. None
00:14:44of these devices are online during the entire voting process,
00:14:47only the scanner is, therefore, at a certain time when it is ready, turned on
00:14:51to transfer those results that are stored in it to the database
00:14:55of the Central Election Commission. These results are immediately published,
00:14:58preliminary. So our data
00:15:01from pilots that were conducted in 2024 show
00:15:05that the average scanning time for both ballots is 45
00:15:09seconds, and the average time for transferring results is 93
00:15:12seconds. We think that time is worth democracy in Bosnia and
00:15:15Herzegovina. Also, manual
00:15:18counting is performed. If the results of manual counting
00:15:22and the results in the scanner differ, it will be recounted, but only
00:15:25in the main counting center of the Central Election Commission. Votes are actually not
00:15:29recounted in local election commissions, which was also a sensitive
00:15:33process. Now they say, is that a violation of the electoral law that it goes to
00:15:36the Central Election Commission in Sarajevo?
00:15:40No, it is actually not a violation of the electoral law, so
00:15:43the results of manual counting are aggregated in the same
00:15:47way. That was actually a procedure that was possible
00:15:50earlier, for manual counting to happen in local election
00:15:54commissions and in the Central Election Commission, i.e., the main counting center.
00:15:57Now, one step has actually just been skipped, which
00:16:01I think is good given the great politicization of the local
00:16:04election commissions themselves. And just one more quick thing, since we're already
00:16:07detailing this, there are no elections yet, there's time until October, but
00:16:11so can it be an x or must it
00:16:13be a circle?
00:16:15Uh, it is recommended to fill in the field, mhm
00:16:19on that ballot where effectively we
00:16:22color this time the field for the candidate or political
00:16:26subject, but the scanner can therefore recognize any
00:16:29way of marking the box,
00:16:32but we, of course, have five more months to
00:16:36bring the new way of voting closer to the voters, which does not mean
00:16:39only the use of new technologies, coloring that field, but actually
00:16:43also some other improvements that have happened, such as
00:16:46the number of preferences. It is impossible to vote for more than three
00:16:50preferences. Yes, before we move on to Croatia as a member
00:16:54of the European Union, let me just say, votes are cast for elections for members of the Presidency of Bosnia and
00:16:57Herzegovina, representatives for state and entity parliaments, president and
00:17:00vice-president of Republika Srpska, and representatives in cantonal assemblies, right?
00:17:04Yes, six electoral races, four each. In each
00:17:07entity, a lot of paper, a lot of work
00:17:11for these new technological inventions. Mr. Rimac, we have
00:17:15heard from Bosnia and Herzegovina about new achievements. Croatia, although a member
00:17:18of the European Union, does not have that, right? No, it doesn't. I must
00:17:22congratulate my colleagues from Bosnia
00:17:25and Herzegovina for having advanced that process so much. Mhm. In fact,
00:17:29we still have voting with
00:17:33ballots that are not really ballots but
00:17:37large sheets, because for example, for parliamentary
00:17:40elections, we have 10
00:17:43electoral units from which 14 candidates are elected,
00:17:46kandidata,
00:17:48uh, that is, 14 of those who received the most
00:17:52votes, whether the voter voted for
00:17:55a party, then it goes by the order as listed on
00:17:59the ballot, or gave a preferential vote within that
00:18:02party to one of the candidates.
00:18:05Of course, there are some rules.
00:18:07"If a preferential vote is given to one,
00:18:10and a party vote to another, then
00:18:14this conflict is naturally
00:18:17resolved. Similarly, if more than one
00:18:20different circling is done, then
00:18:24that ballot is invalid, and so on. What
00:18:27is relatively clear in the Croatian system
00:18:29is that there are few invalid
00:18:33ballots. However, this control of
00:18:37the voters themselves, that is, this scanning of identity
00:18:40cards, especially fingerprints, is
00:18:44certainly something that would be welcome in Croatia,
00:18:48because first, those who cannot
00:18:51go to the polls because they are, for example, immobile or something
00:18:55else, have the right to request
00:18:58that part of the election commission go to the field
00:19:01and conduct the voting in their
00:19:05home, which... It is not completely clear who
00:19:09from the commission goes on such
00:19:12an outing, whether it is done in all
00:19:16electoral units, i.e., at all polling stations, or is it
00:19:19communicated by phone or some other way?
00:19:22Mhm, there is already a possibility of manipulation there. Another atypical
00:19:26thing is that there is still some
00:19:29manipulation, although I think in all three countries there is
00:19:33that key problem of the so-called Bulgarian train, that
00:19:36is, blackmailing voters
00:19:39to receive a blank ballot from some
00:19:43political party and for the party to demand that
00:19:47they record what they circled and return the blank ballot they received
00:19:50at the polling station. Unfortunately, we cannot
00:19:53achieve this control by any other means than
00:19:56by controlling the paper
00:20:00ballots themselves. As for
00:20:03the rest of the process, we
00:20:06have a change in the law on
00:20:09electoral units for parliamentary elections, because we
00:20:12had a disproportionate
00:20:16change in the number of inhabitants in certain electoral units, and this
00:20:20led to a decision by the Constitutional Court that not all
00:20:23voters have equal rights in
00:20:27the voting process, because some elect
00:20:3014 representatives from
00:20:33a now smaller electoral unit, some
00:20:36from a larger electoral unit.
00:20:40These electoral units have now been redrawn so that
00:20:44they have more or less
00:20:46the range of voters that is prescribed
00:20:50by law, which I think is less than 3% difference between
00:20:54electoral units. However, these electoral units,
00:20:58there are 10 of them,
00:21:01do not coincide with the structure of
00:21:04the largest local units, i.e., counties,
00:21:08nor with municipalities, so we have some
00:21:12very strangely drawn electoral units. In such
00:21:15conditions, the campaign
00:21:18for elections is very difficult for candidates
00:21:22who enter very different
00:21:24spaces. Zagreb has three electoral
00:21:28units that it shares with neighboring areas,
00:21:31which do not necessarily have the same problems or
00:21:34the same desires, and even not the local
00:21:38government is different from, say, Zagreb.
00:21:42There
00:21:44is a possibility that
00:21:47simply with such electoral
00:21:50units, the ruling party or,
00:21:54more or less, only the ruling party predominantly proposed these
00:21:57new electoral units, uh, they draw electoral units
00:22:01in such a way that opposition parties that
00:22:05are visible and dominant in some
00:22:08local units are somewhat
00:22:11hindered by those surrounding added
00:22:15areas that are under their rule, so that the
00:22:18ratio of elected representatives in that electoral
00:22:22unit does not largely refer
00:22:26only to those who were, for example,
00:22:29dominant. Then we can conclude then we can conclude that these changes to the electoral
00:22:33law that were in 23 and came into force before the parliamentary elections in 24 are actually
00:22:37not enough to make that electoral process in
00:22:40Croatia, let's say, transparent. I mean, transparent doesn't mean it's not transparent because of that,
00:22:44but that these are not enough changes. I think the problems remain, as far
00:22:47as I understood, with residence, primarily with the
00:22:50diaspora when voting, there are
00:22:53problems, or, well, we have
00:22:56now a fixed number of representatives from the so-called
00:23:00diaspora, that is, representatives, representatives who
00:23:03are elected by citizens of the Republic of Croatia who
00:23:06live outside the territory of the Republic of Croatia, but
00:23:10a big problem was actually the spillover of voters
00:23:14who were from Bosnia and
00:23:17Herzegovina, especially from Herzegovina, who could
00:23:20cross the border on the same day and vote in Bosnia
00:23:23and Herzegovina for diaspora representatives
00:23:27in Croatia where they could have registered
00:23:31residence and thus vote again in the electoral unit
00:23:34that is along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. That means their vote counts
00:23:38twice. Yes, yes, but for actually
00:23:41different lists. As for minority representatives, they have
00:23:45a fixed number. However,
00:23:49that number of, besides
00:23:52Serbian and Italian representatives, is actually
00:23:56rotating, given that it concerns very small national
00:23:59minorities, so they have
00:24:03a rotation from election to election of which national
00:24:07minority gives a delegate to that
00:24:10quota of representatives from national minorities.
00:24:14Yes, just one more question while we are in Croatia, would a combined system be a solution? Less
00:24:18than 60 out of 120 are elected from one electoral
00:24:22unit,
00:24:23I mean,
00:24:26we have a very different economic
00:24:30development and very different needs
00:24:34of people in different regions, and after all,
00:24:37the size of individual regions is significantly
00:24:40different. Zagreb has over 700,000
00:24:43inhabitants, Lika has 350,000
00:24:46inhabitants, pardon 35,000. So,
00:24:5020 times less, if we had one electoral
00:24:53unit, some of these depopulated areas,
00:24:57especially the hinterland of the coast, would practically not
00:25:00be represented in parliament. Sofija,
00:25:03you wanted to add something, I assume about this voting across the border.
00:25:07Yes, yes, actually all the things that
00:25:10my colleague mentioned, I just wanted
00:25:13to present them in the mirror when it comes to Serbia, because it is obvious
00:25:17that the problems are similar, maybe not of the same intensity.
00:25:20Our people abroad have
00:25:23exceptional problems registering to vote
00:25:27at polling stations outside
00:25:30the country, and it is necessary that 100
00:25:33of them vote, right, to register to vote for it to even
00:25:37be possible, and they actually have a
00:25:40condition that citizens in Serbia don't have, because even though
00:25:43polling stations in Serbia range from 100 to
00:25:472,500 voters, very often. polling stations
00:25:50are determined even where there are only about 50 voters, that, for example,
00:25:54is not allowed for our people abroad, that is, to
00:25:57vote if there are fewer than 100 of them. Also, I think
00:26:01this question is interesting. the question of the so-called Bulgarian train, I'm sorry
00:26:04that we still call it that, somehow the Bulgarians suffered
00:26:07the most there, it seems.
00:26:11So there is also a possibility to correct this
00:26:14matter, that is, that voters, from the moment they receive
00:26:18a circled ballot from themselves,
00:26:22at least it is possible in Serbia, I don't know how it is in the region. Our rules
00:26:25are such that you can practically cross out what is already circled
00:26:29and circle something else, but for
00:26:33such a thing, that voter needs to be
00:26:36above average informed and be encouraged to do such a thing, these
00:26:40are very often scared people who either
00:26:43are not aware of these options or, if they are aware, are afraid
00:26:47to put them into practice, and the third thing I wanted to say, if it is
00:26:51obviously similar, is this voting outside the polling station, which is
00:26:54also, among other things that have become problematic in Serbia, this has also
00:26:58become problematic. So at the last parliamentary elections, over
00:27:02100 people voted outside the polling
00:27:05station, even though we have somewhat more precise rules that you can
00:27:08apply by phone to the electoral commission on election day until 11
00:27:12o'clock, it is known who goes to vote outside the polling station,
00:27:16what that commission looks like, but further we practically have
00:27:19one census, one parliamentary party, right? That is
00:27:23the level somewhere around 100,000 voters, uh, which is
00:27:27that amount of votes obtained in
00:27:30this way, and that is... beyond all early, so much more
00:27:34than in all previous parliamentary elections, and that is
00:27:37worrying. We expect that this abuse
00:27:41will continue to be used, let me just, before we play
00:27:44the report from Serbia, state regarding Serbia and Croatia, where you mentioned
00:27:48the diaspora, it's quite interesting, it seems that the diaspora in Croatia
00:27:51supports the ruling party, while the diaspora in Serbia seems, at least
00:27:55according to the latest research and, shall I say,
00:27:58echoes, maybe it would be said that it no longer really
00:28:02supports the ruling party, so that's why it's debatable whether
00:28:06they can vote if there are fewer of them and so on. Look, we actually, we
00:28:10actually don't know for those Croatian citizens
00:28:13who went to the West to other countries, what their
00:28:17political orientation is. They
00:28:19are more or less for economic reasons, but also due to
00:28:23the assessment of the prospects of life in Croatia, they went to other
00:28:26countries. Uh, what is typical is that
00:28:29everyone in all other countries, those
00:28:32voters vote at Croatian representative offices in
00:28:36that country. Uh, only voters from
00:28:40Bosnia and Herzegovina have open polling stations,
00:28:43that within the area
00:28:47where they are the dominant group in
00:28:50Bosnia and Herzegovina, that
00:28:53corpus of Croatian presence in Bosnia and
00:28:56Herzegovina is dominant and it actually determines those
00:28:59representatives who are uh elected
00:29:03in the diaspora. So, others
00:29:07from other parts of the world are counted on the fingers of one
00:29:11or two hands, so
00:29:13seven vote in Sydney, 17 in Los
00:29:16Angeles, five, and so on, while from Bosnia and
00:29:20Herzegovina we have figures of several
00:29:23tens of thousands. I wanted a report from Serbia, but I don't think it's fair
00:29:26not to ask Mr. Jovanović, since Bosnia and Herzegovina and the diaspora, which have such an impact,
00:29:30have been mentioned so much. quite a lot on this election process in Croatia itself.
00:29:34Well, it's not just in Croatia, we
00:29:36also had the Belgrade election, what
00:29:39happened, so what we have is this phenomenon of voter phalanxes,
00:29:43I would say, among these four
00:29:47neighboring countries,
00:29:49or rather three countries that are neighbors of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
00:29:53so we often have the same people or group
00:29:57of people who elect the government in Banja Luka, in Belgrade,
00:30:00or here in Mostar, in...
00:30:03"in Dalmatia, maybe, or in Split, this is a problem that
00:30:06no one actually wants to solve, it is consciously politically placed there,
00:30:10we know that all three of these seats in the Croatian Parliament actually come from Bosnia and
00:30:13Herzegovina, that these are in a way sure
00:30:16votes of a certain political, political milieu, and
00:30:20it would be possible to solve it given that we, as a legacy of that
00:30:24former common state, have a unique personal identification
00:30:27number, which is actually equally or similarly,
00:30:30or rather, in the same way,
00:30:32because residence is considered only the place formed in all these four countries, so that
00:30:35by comparing the voter lists
00:30:38we would come to who has dual residences in
00:30:41countries, which is forbidden by many laws and even the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
00:30:47where you have
00:30:50settled with the aim of living there permanently, right?
00:30:53And you wouldn't be able to actually have two residences,
00:30:57this is being abused, mm..."