PM denies allegations that the ruling party is registering phantom voters in Belgrade

Brnabić presenting a graph on the numbers of registered voters in Belgrade in recent years

Photo: FoNet

BELGRADE – Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić held a press conference today, denying the allegations that the government is registering its supporters in Belgrade ahead of the upcoming local elections on 17 December.

These allegations, which have been unconfirmed, state that the ruling party is registering new voters in Belgrade, who otherwise do not live in the city, in order to boost its support shortly before the election date.

In the lead up to the previous local elections in Belgrade, held in April 2022, these allegations were also made by part of the media and the opposition.

Several outlets, including the website Nova.rs wrote extensively about this issue at the time, publishing numerous articles on people who claimed that they had received official invitations for vote for unknown people who had been registered at their addresses.

No definitive proof that there was a massive operation like this has been provided. In the April 2022 Belgrade election, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) won 348,345 votes, which was a slight drop in votes compared to 2018, when it won 366,871 votes. The percentage of votes won by the ruling party dropped from 44% to 38% due to an increased turnout.

The allegations have resurfaced once again this year and were made, among others, by the leader of newly established People’s Movement of Serbia Miroslav Aleksić. Back in October, Aleksić claimed that 300 to 500 people were being registered in Belgrade daily, and that the institutions refused to reply to his public information inquiry on this issue.

Another opposition politician, Đorđe Miketić of the “Together” party, announced earlier this week that he had de-registered an unknown person from his address, because he had received mail addressed to them. Government-critical media reported the news, putting it in the context of the phantom voters.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić held a press conference, denying these allegations. She first stated that the “Miketić case” was false, because there were no, as she claimed, official records of anybody but the members of his family ever living on that address.

Branbić proceed with the assurances that there are no manipulations with the electoral rolls and that the citizens can access the overview of the number of voters which is regularly updated on a government website.

The Prime Minister showed a graph of the official number of registered voters in recent Belgrade elections, claiming that there were no significant differences.

She also accused the opposition of smearing and destabilising their own country.

“The goal is for the chaos to break out on 18 December. They are preparing an alibi for their loss”, Brnabić said.

In his reaction to Brnabić’s press conference, Miketić denied that he was lying about an unknown person being registered at his address and said that he would press charges against Brnabić.

The latest numbers on the official government website show that there are currently about 10,000 more voters registered in Belgrade than in April 2022, brining the total number just over 1.6 million.