{"id":36927,"date":"2023-11-30T11:24:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T09:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/?p=36927"},"modified":"2023-12-11T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T09:32:28","slug":"deputy-gik-member-it-is-not-the-job-of-election-commissions-to-establish-facts-regarding-sns-s-call-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/deputy-gik-member-it-is-not-the-job-of-election-commissions-to-establish-facts-regarding-sns-s-call-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Deputy GIK Member: It Is Not the Job of Election Commissions to Establish Facts Regarding SNS\u2019s Call Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

After CINS published its story<\/a> about the Serbian Progressive Party\u2019s<\/em> (SNS) call center, raising suspicions of vote buying, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office<\/em> in Belgrade<\/em> said it was waiting on electoral commissions<\/a> to determine irregularities. Deputy member of the City Electoral Commission<\/em> on behalf of the Serbia Against Violence<\/em> electoral list Vladica Ili\u0107<\/strong> says that he doesn\u2019t really understand what the commissions should do:<\/p>

“The Republic Electoral Commission<\/em> (RIK) and City Electoral Commission<\/em> (GIK) are bodies that make sure the elections are carried out legally. This is something that involves pointing out abuse during the election process, but GIK does not have the authority to establish these types of facts and to take action in relation to what you have uncovered.”<\/p>

According to him, once we scratch the surface, we can already see serious suspicions that these are potential criminal offences, but also other violations of regulations related to cash-in-hand payments to people.<\/p>

“Under normal circumstances and in a country where the prosecutor’s office actually does its job, it would have already checked what is underneath the surface instead of waiting for us to do it all.”<\/p>

Ili\u0107, who is a lawyer at the Belgrade Center for Human Rights<\/em>, adds that there is also the question of who all the people who work at those call centers are \u2013 they could people from some institutions, public or otherwise, who might be forced to work there, who spend their working time there while being paid for something else entirely with the money of Serbia\u2019s citizens.<\/p>

“The prosecution should look into all that. I think it’s a classic case of passing the buck from them to electoral bodies, which simply have neither the capacity nor the authority to determine such facts,” Ili\u0107 points out.<\/p>

He believes that in addition to the prosecution, the Tax Inspectorate <\/em>should also get involved:<\/p>

“They pay people cash-in-hand supposedly for some services that entail checking the voting mood of citizens \u2013 it’s a typical job for the Tax Inspectorate<\/em>. As far as I know, cash-in-hand payments for that kind of thing are illegal in Serbia.”<\/p>

As a reminder, CINS infiltrated the Serbian Progressive Party\u2019s<\/em> call center, from which more than 100 people call citizens every day and ask them if they will vote for that party in the upcoming elections. The investigation<\/a> we subsequently published reveals that a well-organized group is behind it all, that daily wages are paid cash-in-hand, raising suspicions of using “black money”, and that a condition for the job is voting for SNS in the upcoming elections on 17 December.<\/p>

Thank you for reposting CINS articles! When doing so, you need to state that you have taken the story over from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, and provide a link to the article you are reposting.<\/strong><\/p>

More information at: cins.rs\/en\/terms-of-use<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deputy member of the City Electoral Commission Vladica Ili\u0107 says that when it comes to CINS\u2019s article about SNS\u2019s call center, the Prosecution and the Tax Inspectorate need to react, and that this is not the job of electoral commissions, which do not have the authority to investigate this case. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1348,"featured_media":36614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1571,1604,1497,1573],"tags":[1611,2197],"class_list":["post-36927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fight-against-corruption","category-hp-slider","category-news","category-political-parties","tag-serbian-progressive-party","tag-snss-call-center","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Vladica-Ilic-foto-n1.jpg","author_additional":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36929,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36927\/revisions\/36929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}