The citizens of Kraljevo found themselves at the center of the fight for their rights after they collected more than 11.000 signatures demanding a referendum on the future of the local Pharmacy institution. Instead of the expected entry into the procedure for holding the referendum, they encountered a series of obstacles from the local authorities
U Kraljev are workers at the end of September Pharmacy establishments with the support of the local opposition and non-governmental organizations, they submitted around 11.000 signatures of citizens with a request that the City Assembly call a referendum where the people of Kraljevo would express their opinion on the status of the pharmacy there, after the decision to rent part of the property to private individuals.
In order to submit a request to hold a local referendum, the signatures of at least 9.897 voters from the territory of the city of Kraljevo were required.
And instead of entering into the procedure for holding the referendum - problems begin.
As Predrag Voštinić, an activist of the Local Front from Kraljevo, explains to "Vreme", the government has violated the law in the most brutal way and is trying to nullify the will of a large number of citizens of Kraljevo.
"The basic model of expression of will guaranteed by the constitution is popular initiative, referendum and free elections." We tried to prevent the decision in the City Assembly to sell part of the pharmacy's property to third parties, i.e. to a private company, and we succeeded in that. "Together with the employees of the Pharmacy Institution, we launched an initiative to repeal that decision, which we believe is harmful, through a referendum," explains Voštinić.
Resignation of the President of the Election Commission
He adds that the government's reaction after collecting more than 11.000 citizens' signatures was to put some of them out of use with an invented procedure for withdrawing signatures. However, the law stipulates that the signature cannot be withdrawn.
"Then they looked at what else they could come up with." They came to the decision that the Election Commission, which is responsible for the implementation of this procedure, should "remove" several thousand signatures. The President of the Electoral Commission asked: 'How can I overthrow'? They tell her that they will make the signatures not validly authenticated or something like that. The president said that it was a criminal offense and resigned. In the Election Commission, there were four votes 'for' and four votes 'against'. Then they withdrew the deputy president of the Election Commission, who will obey their order, and voted that every statement should be physically checked, which means that paper by paper is taken and it is determined how it was authenticated," explains Voštinić.
During that physical check, continued Voštinić, the Commission made a decision that more than 2.000 signatures were "sloppy" certified, that is, there were shortcomings during the certification.
"On some of them it is written: 'The name and surname are not visible, the signature of the authenticator is missing, the stamp is not visible properly'. And the authority in charge of certification is the municipal certification, and they certified in the wrong way. This is how we come to a situation where one municipal body does not recognize the work of another body, that is, municipal verifiers. Obviously, they set up some of them, and we will certainly prosecute them because it is negligent performance of official activities," explains Voštinić.
Protection from domestic and international institutions
According to his words, the authorities have already determined which certifiers they will "sacrifice" for that occasion and will initiate alleged criminal proceedings against them.
"And that someone agreed to it and will do everything to cover up the case." So, they themselves made sloppiness so that we would be rejected. That is why we will ask for protection from all domestic and international institutions, because these are things that are also guaranteed by the European Charter on Local Self-Government. This is not a petition; this is an official document on civil rights," points out Voštinić.
He assesses that the authorities should revise the decision and recognize that the signatures are valid.
"We will stand over their necks until this is properly resolved." We do not agree to such forfeited signatures. The public needs to know that more than 11.000 signatures make up more than 20 percent of those who voted in the territory of the City of Kraljevo. Therefore, almost a quarter of the voters of the City of Kraljevo confirmed by signing that they want to change the decision. It is obvious that this threatens the authorities' rating and trust at the local level, and they must not allow the referendum," Voštinić points out.
Considering that the local government, i.e. the certifiers, has already done a bad job once, Voštinić asks a logical question: "Who guarantees us that the certifiers will not make mistakes again this time"?
Local government: Everything is according to the law, the conditions have not been met
After all, the local government informed the public that "the City Election Commission, which consists of representatives of all councilor groups in the Kraljevo City Assembly, established that the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government rejected 305 signatures after overlapping with the voter list for local elections, and GIK of each signature determined that another 2.175 signatures are not valid, so a total of 8.477 valid signatures were submitted to the City Election Commission".
"As it is necessary to collect the signatures of 10 percent of citizens with the right to vote, i.e. 9.895 citizens of Kraljevo, to hold a referendum, the City Election Commission has determined that the conditions for holding a referendum have not been met," the authorities added.
The initiators of the initiative do not agree with this and say that they will demand compliance with the law and the voting of a referendum on the transfer of part of the property of the Pharmacy Institution to private individuals.
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