Publication | Report/Paper

Republic of Serbia: Poll worker Training, Phase I, Aug-Oct 1997

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In August 1997, the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) initiated a technical assistance program in the Republic of Serbia as the country's electorate, political forces and election officials prepared for parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for the 21st of September. The contest would determine the composition of a 250 seat unicameral legislature and the republican presidency, left vacant when Slobodan Milosevic assumed the federal presidency of Yugoslavia. It was hoped that the results would signal the prospects for political liberalization in the Republic of Serbia, the relative power of Federal power structures under Milosevic's control, and the future role of Serbia in the Bosnian Peace Process. The aims of this project were:

1. To maximize the quality and breadth of poll worker training efforts through the creation of a training of trainers structure and the provision of reference and instructional materials for up to 25,000 poll workers nation-wide.

2. To encourage the active and informed participation of voters through the conduct of a nonpartisan voter information program, including targeted messages to traditionally disadvantaged groups.

Almost immediately, the IFES team found itself operating under the most challenging of circumstances. Foremost among these was bureaucratic intransigence, if not official antagonism. As a result, American members of the IFES team were not issued entry visas until 3 weeks prior to the election, effectively halving the duration of the assistance project. This situation in conjunction with a polarized opposition movement -- part of which encouraged voters to go to the polls and oust the current regime, the remainder of which called upon its members to boycott what it deemed to be an illegitimate process -- necessitated considerable adjustments to the parameters of the project as originally envisioned.

Despite these political challenges and their operational ramifications, an IFES team of election and area experts was able to build the capacity of political parties to conduct "in-house" training of poll workers required in this election and in the future by:

1. Instructing 1268 Core and Secondary Trainers, representing a spectrum of 10 political parties and 18 cities, in training and poll worker techniques;

2. Preparing and distributing approximately 6000 training and reference manuals, which are included as appendices, through a core training network and political party headquarters and local chapters.

Given Serbia's limited progress with respect to liberalization of the mass media and substantive reform of its election laws as noted in the Gonzalez Report and subsequent findings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), future US investments in democracy development, if they are forthcoming, will need to focus on long-term systemic change, ie. legal and institutional reform and civic education. This is further supported by growing extremism as evidenced by the results of the September elections.  

 

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