On the referendum question "Are you in favor of confirming the Act on Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia?", based on 98 percent of the processed sample, 57,4 percent of citizens registered in the electoral roll voted "for" the confirmation of the Act on Amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia at the referendum, while 41,6 percent voted "against", announced the Monitoring Mission of the Line.
In Belgrade, 45,4 percent of voters voted YES and NO 54,6 percent, announced Aleksandar Vučić at a press conference at the headquarters of the Serbian Progressive Party.
Out of 6.510.323 registered voters, less than 30 percent turned out for the referendum, which is about 20 percent less than the turnout for the referendum on changing the Constitution in 2006, when 52,31 percent, i.e. 3.434.279 citizens, voted "yes" with great difficulty. Based on recent changes to the Law on Referendum and People's Initiative, there is no census in terms of turnout as a condition for the referendum to succeed.
"The turnout was expectedly low, considering the little attention that was devoted to the referendum. The state authorities of the Republic of Serbia are responsible for this little attention. On the other hand, it is about a subject that is relatively far away for most citizens and seems complicated to them," said Vesna Rakić Vodinelić in a special show on TV N1
Voters from Kosovo and Metohija, since the authorities in Pristina did not allow Serbs to vote at the polling stations where they live, expressed their referendum commitment at the polling stations in Kuršumlija, Raška, Novi Pazar and Vranje.
Changes to the constitution were also voted on at 10 polling stations abroad.
Raša Nedeljkov, program director of the Crta organization, which is accredited as a domestic observation mission, says that a third of the polling stations were without the complete composition of the polling stations at the time of the opening of the polling station, that in eight percent of the polling stations the polling station itself was not organized in accordance with the procedure. which jeopardized the secrecy of the vote and the verification of the voter's identity.
As reported by N1, the biggest incident happened when a former official of the Dveri movement, Srđan Nogo, broke a ballot box at polling station 35 in Belgrade. The MUP announced that he was detained for up to 48 hours.
Voting in the referendum, the President of the Assembly Ivica Dacic said that it is very important that the citizens take part in it, because it is decided who will work in the judiciary, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, believes that the citizens will vote "for the progress of democracy, the rule of law and the true independence of the judiciary." and prosecution", and that the changes are important for foreign investors for whom the rule of law is one of the key factors when deciding on investments in Serbia.
The representatives of the European Union invited the citizens of Serbia to go to the referendum and vote YES.
"Everyone can present these results as their relative success," Đorđe Vukadinović, editor of New Serbian Political Thought, told Vreme. The authorities are satisfied that they managed to push through a referendum on a topic that their electorate is not interested in. Speculations that Vučić deliberately wanted to lose the referendum are nonsense for him, because the SNS has been mobilizing its capillary voters for the last ten days to come out and vote.
And those who advocated a referendum and voted NO are not satisfied with the percentage they won, especially in Belgrade where the majority was against such a change to the Constitution, explains Vukadinović. And those who called for a boycott are also satisfied, because the turnout was very modest and they can first say that they were successful. Vukadinović states that the referendum would have failed if the turnout had been higher in Belgrade, because there is the widest base of voters who would vote against it.
All in all, despite the low turnout, after the Referendum Law was changed, the Constitution will be changed and judges and prosecutors will be elected by the High Council of the Judiciary and the High Council of the Prosecution.
AM/N1/FoNet
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