BS
Listen to how a “branch of the Serbian Progressive Party” in Banja Luka allegedly “registers” citizens holding dual citizenship (of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia) to vote in the upcoming elections in Serbia.
A citizen from Banja Luka recorded part of a phone call he received on his mobile phone from a woman who introduced herself as Sara, calling “on behalf of the Serbian Progressive Party.” She asked whether he would be interested in being visited by her “colleagues from the mobile team,” who would scan his Serbian ID card for the purpose of “registering him to vote.”
The recorded conversation points to several potential violations of the law and forms of electoral manipulation in both Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. How did this “branch” obtain information about citizens with dual citizenship, and how did it get their telephone numbers? Were these details obtained by cross-referencing multiple separate databases?
How is it possible for a political party to collect citizens’ personal data and “register” them to vote at a polling station abroad on their behalf, particularly for elections that have not yet been officially called? Are the data collected through such surveys also being used for other purposes?
As early as the end of July, our partner organization CRTA, which observes elections in Serbia, received information that individuals had been going door to door in Banja Luka, introducing themselves as officials of the Consulate of the Republic of Serbia and asking citizens about their plans to vote in elections in Serbia. During the 2023 Belgrade elections, CRTA collected evidence of the organized migration of tens of thousands of voters, many of them from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Could a similar electoral engineering operation now be in preparation—namely, the organization of so-called voting phalanxes: groups of voters who are systematically gathered, recorded, directed and, when necessary, transported by political structures to specific polling stations in order to achieve a pre-planned electoral outcome across multiple countries?
We recall that the Coalition “Pod lupom” conducted research in 2022 which revealed that as many as 40% of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina had been subjected to some form of unlawful pressure on voters. This pressure now appears to be expanding to voting in elections in neighbouring countries as well, taking place in parallel during the election period ahead of the General Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and potentially involving elements of the unlawful misuse of the personal data of BiH citizens.
