Rapajic: I believe foreign representatives will take note of the CEC’s undemocratic decision

Aleksandar Rapajic, Program Director of the NGO Center for the Advocacy of Democratic Culture from North Mitrovica, told Kosovo Online that by deciding not to verify the election results solely for the Serb List, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has shown that it has become a political body. He added that he does not believe foreign representatives and embassies will fail to take note of such a fairly undemocratic decision.

Rapajic says this is the first time the Central Election Commission has verified election results separately for a single party.

“It is obvious that Self-Determination wants to continue denying the Serb List anything at all, even what it is entitled to under the law and the Constitution. Once again, the Serb List has to appeal the CEC’s decision, and this only shows that the CEC has become a political body that makes political decisions, rather than one that verifies election results as they actually were,” Rapajic said.

He expects that the Election Complaints and Appeals Panel, to which the Serb List filed an appeal today, will overturn the decision of the Central Election Commission.

“It is impossible to ignore the results achieved by the Serb List in the elections. You cannot refuse to accept election results simply because you do not like them. With such decisions, the Central Election Commission is only harming itself and its own legitimacy, because I do not believe that foreign representatives and embassies will fail to note that such a fairly undemocratic decision has been made by preventing the verification of election results, which should be sacrosanct,” Rapajic emphasized.

Asked whether this move by the CEC could be interpreted as a form of retaliation—as some analysts suggest—for the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the election of Nenad Rašic as Deputy Speaker of the Assembly in the previous term was unconstitutional, Rapajic said he does not see why retaliation for a court decision would be directed at the Serb List, but that the CEC’s move could be a reaction to that ruling.

“The Constitutional Court’s decision put Self-Determination in a very difficult position because it stated that in the next term of the Assembly, the Serb List should determine who will be the Serbian Deputy Speaker of the Assembly. They do not like that at all, and in a way this could be a reaction to that,” he said.