Why Doesn't the Vojvodina Electoral System Provide for Positive Discrimination of Minorities?

DNEVNIK

29 July 2004

Most parties of the national minorities, but also minor political parties in the political scene of Vojvodina, protested the high election threshold in the proposed new legislation on electoral system in the province. Parties of the minorities are dissatisfied by the fact that the new rules for election of members of parliament of multinational Vojvodina don't provide for a positive discrimination of the minorities.

The ruling coalition, made of the Democratic Party, the League of Social-Democrats and the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians, defined the proposal for the Electoral legislation based on the combined electoral system. According to the proposal, 60 of the total of 120 MPs would be elected on two-round majority system with two candidates advancing to the second round, while the other half of the Parliamentary seats would be decided through proportional system, which would make the whole of Vojvodina a single electoral district with a set threshold of five percent.

The general view is that the high threshold would eliminate in the start the representatives of the national minorities running on minority lists, with the exception of the Hungarians, the greatest minority in Vojvodina.

Nenad Canak

Representatives of the ruling parties, on the other hand, dismiss the arument that the new electoral rules discriminate the national minorities, and claim that the new electoral rules will, after all, provide for representation of the minority populations in the Provincial Parliament. However, they wouldn't totally eliminate the possibility for corrections in the legislation during the Parlieamentary Debate.

According to the Speaker of the Parliament and the leader of the League of Social-Democrats, Nenad Canak, it is possible for the Parliament to use the amendment debate to introduce changes in terms of positive discrimination of the national minorities. Nevertheless, he said at the press conference yesterday that the introduction of positive discrimination for the minorities would mean "discrimination of the supranational parties."

"People believe here that the national councils are the only legitimate representatives of the minority communities. In the civic political parties, however, there are many representatives of the national minotirities, and yet those parties are not offered such an opportunity," said Canak.

Bojan Pajtic, the Vice-President of the Democratic Party claims that the ruling parties had not "bad intentions" when adopting the new electoral model. In his statement for "Dnevnik" he said that "no special measures for protection of national minorities" were needed in the decision on teh electoral system itself, having in mind that the new structure of the electoral districts secures passability of the majority of national minority communities to the Parliament.

Pajtic added that there is still time to discuss some solutions of the proposed electoral system, saying that the ruling parites defined the proposal based on the compromise on the essential aspects of the electoral process, and that the final decision lies with the Members of the Parliament.