Serbia NGO Queries Millions Spend on Multiple Elections

The National Coalition for Decentralisation, NKD, a Serbian NGO, on Tuesday published a report saying that the country had spent 74.4 million euros on holding presidential and parliamentary elections since 2012 - more than 60 per cent of which went on snap elections.  

"All these snap elections were held despite a stable situation in the country," Jovana Strahinic from the NKD told BIRN, adding that since 2012 the state administration had functioned smoothly and the government had enjoyed a stable majority in parliament.

Serbia's April 2 presidential regular elections were the fifth national elections in the last five years.

In 2012, Serbia held both snap presidential and regular parliamentary elections, in 2014 snap parliamentary elections, and the same took place in 2016.

According to the NKD report, for the same amount of budget funds allocated for the snap parliamentary elections held over the last five years, Serbia's parliament could have worked for almost two years.

"In the official explanations for the snap elections, the main motive was 'continuation, or acceleration', of reforms on Serbia's path towards the European Union.

"Each election cycle in that period, however, slowed down the reforms, which, among others, was noted by the European Commission in the Annual Progress Reports of Serbia," Strahinic explained.

In its 2016 Progress Report, the European Commission stated that progress in the normalisation of the relations with the former province of Kosovo was limited because of the snap elections held that year.

According to Strahinic, from the NKD, the elections in 2012 and 2014 caused a total delay in the adoption of laws of 11 months.

She concluded that a year ago, the...