Serbia ties overseas voting to local time, a move likely to spark backlash ahead of a key election

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Ahead of a key parliamentary election later this month, Serbia 's election commission has tied overseas voting hours to the local time in the country and approved a contested list of polling stations abroad — a move critics say could make it tough for the Serbian diaspora on the other side of the world to vote.

The decision means that voters in Chicago, which is home to a large Serbian community, would have to cast their ballots between 1 a.m. and 2 p.m., and Serbs in parts of Australia and New Zealand would have to show up at the polls — typically set up in diplomatic missions and offices — and vote overnight.

The high-stakes Oct. 25 election was called by Serbian populist leader Aleksandar Vucic before he stepped down as president last month in a bid to return to power as prime minister and leader of his Serbian Progressive Party.

Vucic resigned as president on Sept. 27, cutting short his second and final legally allowed term by more than seven months.

The resignation came as he has faced sustained pressure from nearly two years of protests by a burgeoning student movement that has morphed into a political force that will challenge him in the election.

Analysts have predicted a tight race and a high turnout, which could benefit the student-led ticket. However, tensions have been high in Serbia, with incidents and altercations at campaign events. International observers say past elections in the Balkan country have been marred by irregularities and violence.

Serbia's election commission on Monday tied voting hours abroad to the 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. voting window in Serbia — rather than to the time in countries abroad — and approved having 93 polling stations overseas.

And while the number of polling stations is 12 more than in the 2023 election, nine of them are in neighboring Bosnia, which has a large ethnic Serb minority in the Bosnian Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska. Bosnia will have a total of 28 polling stations — nearly 30% of the overseas stations.

Vucic is popular among Bosnian Serbs, and his political ally there, Milorad Dodik, has advocated for separating Republika Srpska from Bosnia.

Election officials have said that at least 100,000 citizens have applied to vote abroad, nearly three times as many as in 2023.

Sofija Mandic, a legal expert and member of the election commission, said the overseas voting changes ignored requests from Vucic's opposition for more polling stations in North America, Australia, and Europe.

“This could effectively close the door for more than 26,000 people,” she told independent N1 television on Sunday, ahead of the election commission's vote on the proposed changes.

Mandic said the foreign ministry was handpicking where to establish some polling stations “based on assumptions of how people are going to vote.”

Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric denied that, saying on X on Sunday that the overseas voting changes were guided “not only by the number of registered voters, but also by logistical, security, spatial, (and) staffing” criteria.

Particularly impacted are places like Vancouver in Canada, where nearly 1,300 people have applied to vote but no polling station has been assigned, said David Krstic, another election commission member.

Serb voters who want to cast ballots would have to travel about 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) to reach the nearest polling stations in Toronto or Ottawa, he said.

The student protests were initially sparked by a Nov. 1, 2024 train station canopy collapse that killed 16 people in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city. The student-led movement’s struggle for justice over the tragedy and against corruption grew over time into a political force.

Its electoral arm, the Student List, will challenge the government of Vucic’s party, in power for 14 years. Vucic himself has been either prime minister or president for the past 12 years.