Publication | Report/Paper

Serbia and Montenegro: Poll worker Training Voter Awareness Assessment Legal Review

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Republic of Serbia

In late July 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 21 September 1997. The contest would ultimately 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 poll workers nation-wide.

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

The situation posed by 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 "inhouse" 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 in 18 cities, in training methodologies and poll worker techniques.

2.      Designing, preparing and distributing approximately 6000 training and reference manuals through an IFES-organized core training network and through political party headquarters and local chapters.

Because September election results did not yield the "50% plus 1" turnout of the 7.2 million eligible voters necessary to validate the election, another presidential election was scheduled for 7 December 1997. In order to expand on this training opportunity after the September elections, IFES initiated a second phase of training in the Republic of Serbia, using one international trainer who continued the technical assistance project initiated in August.

The Phase II project was designed to continue to train as many members of polling boards as possible. While the Phase I project selected 60 District Core Trainers (DCTs), Phase II selected three exemplary trainers from: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Kragujevac and Subotica, totaling 15. DCTs, and continued with training which had been initiated for the September elections.

Similar to the Phase I project conditions, this second phase found itself operating under the most challenging of circumstances. Opposition parties continued to call for an election boycott and other parties were financially limited due to the number of unexpected elections. Voter apathy and limited campaigning were also major contributing factors.

Despite these challenges, the Phase II team was able to train an additional 284 poll workers in eight cities: Novi Sad, Subotica, Leskovac, Kragujevac, Topola, Zrenjanin, Nela Palanka and Nis. 500 manuals were distributed to the DCTs for training sessions and certificates of accomplishment were presented to attendees who completed training.

Read the Full Report.

Downloads