Radical Rigging

"After these kinds of results in the December 21 presidential elections, we should not at all fear statements by Ibrahim Rugova that Kosovo Albanians will come out to vote in March. If Milan Milutinovic participates in those elections, I guarantee that he will be in the second round, and from there on everything is set: Milan Milutinovic will be the absolute favorite, and will win in Kosovo and Metohija. Thus he will become President of the Republic of Kosovo, and we will have taken care of that problem also". This is how Dragan Todorovic, Chief of the Election Headquarters of the Serbian Radical Party, comments for VREME on Milutinovic’s victory in the presidential elections. The Radicals are working day and night on processing election results so as to be able to prove with maximum precision how the Socialist Party of Serbia did the election rigging.

"Right up to these December 21 elections, from September 21 through to October 5 and December 21, everyone knew that the Socialists were rigging the elections. The only question was how much rigging they were doing, and how to make such activity impossible for the Socialist Party", states Todorovic. "We knew this right after the 1996 federal elections, and that is why we did not lose a single day and began preparing immediately for the Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections. Experience from 1996 tells that the Socialists tried everything from counterfeiting to rigging, but that after the lex specialis — that is, after pressures from the West — they were forced to acknowledge those results from polling stations. We were aware that we had to ready the infrastructure and organization of the Party sufficiently so that only we could control SPS, and that we could once and for all manage to prove everything we know. We covered all polling stations, and ascertained the processing mechanisms in those polling stations. Around 25 thousand of our people monitored the elections — at least two and somewhere three in election committees, plus activists in election headquarters. It is of little surprise that SRS can mobilize that many people, because according to latest information our membership is around 164,000. As far as elections are concerned, there are no more unknowns for us. We can process all data far better and more efficiently than SPS and the Elections Committee of the Republic. We were aware that a party which could not perform such a task had no place on the political scene. Thus on September 21, we had already warned Ivica Dacic that he was lying, because we had all the information. In contrast to all elections held so far, we managed to get all records from polling stations, and records are unbeatable evidence of what happened at the polling station, assuming that it has been signed.

That which we could control, we did — we prevented SPS from rigging and from getting away with it. We are still not in a position of preventing it from rigging simply because this is no longer rigging, but highway robbery. The difference between rigging and highway robbery is that rigging requires some ability, with the victim being unable to see you, while highway robbery employs brute force. All the rigging in these elections was done by highway robbers — starting right from the Socialist MP’s in the Serbian Parliament.

There was constant rigging going on from September 21 to December 7. The only difference is in its extent. On December 21, in the second round of the repeated presidential elections, we were alone with the Socialists, so that they stole without fear — because I suppose that they got a wink of approval from the West. However, for us, it is better that they did this in the worst possible way — because this way it is easier to prove.

What we went through in the first round on December 7 is child’s play compared to what they did to us in the second round on December 21. What transpired was literally the worst assault of the people, and once more to a maximum degree in Kosovo and Metohija. However, as all that reflects on Serbia, it appears that on December 21, Serbia also was assaulted. Say for instance, if it happens to someone that someone else tries to assault them, and they get the chance to call the cops, and the assault squad arrives, but instead of coming to the rescue, they help out the assailant to finish the job. That’s exactly what happened to us, that is to say to voters on December 21.

THE EXTENT OF RIGGING: The facts are unbelievable, but true. There exists only one chance of error which stems from the fact that the 1981 census in Kosovo was done on the basis of a projection and not data, and a mistake was made, so that in 1991, a projection was made on the basis of the 1981 projection, and thus the error was multiplied. Naturally, in 1997, that error is even bigger, while we only have in hand official statistics, even though we are already getting more concrete data than our activists in the field. The errors in the numbers of the Serb electorate in Kosovo have already been annulled, because SPS always has two or three figures which they use at will. For now we have data about 286,894 rigged votes in electoral districts 19, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29. Only a part of the electorate has been processed, and I do not doubt that this figure will double, but we need more time to process all the data. But we will process data from every single polling station.

That means, I absolutely believe that more than half a million votes were rigged. You should know, there were two types of rigging on December 21. One took place at polling stations, but that was not enough to reach the necessary 50 percent quota of the electorate, so that election committees had to do ‘additional rigging’. How did the rigging take place in election committees? Simple. They sit down and figure out how many votes they need, and then they add that many more votes. I estimate that in the election headquarters in Vitina they added more than 3,000 votes. According to rough estimates, 6,000 voters came to vote in Vitina, and when data was released, it turned out that 9,000 people voted. Our data cannot be ignored: there can be a difference of a one, two, three votes, but never of 3,000 for a total number of voters which numbers 25 thousand, of which less than 20 percent voted. We have all the records from Vitina.

I would put it this way: they stole at polling stations. But as they did not immediately have data abut the extent of rigging, they only realized later that they were still short. It’s like when a pickpocket goes into a bus and misappropriates wallets, but cannot see right away how much he hauled in. When he goes through his loot at home, he realizes that he is still short, and goes back into a bus for more, or if the bus is too far, he goes to the nearest neighbor and steels from him. Socialists could not steal enough at the polling stations right from the start, because our control was excellent. We sent nearly all our MP’s to polling stations in Kosovo and Metohija. And now you have something that defies belief. In several places our MP’s opened ballot boxes to prove that they were full and sealed even before the polling stations even opened. We have celluloid evidence of this where it happened, and where voting took place after that! And we have the explanation by Nebojsa Rodic, Chief of the Election Committee of the Republic, for shame!, that what’s at issue was a spare ballot box. One ballot box was broken open, and the rigged votes were gathered into another box, and voting continued. Not even that was enough for them.

EVERYTHING WAS STAGED: Hardened by experience, we showed up at polling stations at six in the morning to prevent rigging. However, we could have come 24 hours earlier, and it would still have been of no use. Everything was staged, ballot boxes were filled and sealed, preventing the possibility of their being opened so that a member of the SRS election committee could inspect them. Our controllers were obstructed in every possible way from coming to polling stations. We have footage of an orchestrated traffic accident where a truck and a bicycle collided right at the precise time that a car carrying our controllers approached. The bicycle has no evidence of damage. Our people exited the car and got to the polling station through neighboring streets. It was already opened, and the ballot box was sealed. We broke open the box and it was full, which should mean that everyone voted before our controllers managed to arrive.

If a controller comes to a polling station and tries to do anything, police is called and he is ejected, arrested — they did everything. If they were permitted to monitor voting until closing time, they were not permitted to sign any records. In any case, 35 member of election committees were arrested on election day, December 21. 11 of our MP’s were also arrested and were held in jail until eight, that is to say eight thirty in the evening, or when voting stopped. Our MP, Stako Studen, was literally thrown out of a polling station on October 5 by policemen and two members of SPS. He was an observer and was waiting for the ballot box to be opened and for the votes to be counted. Please, if someone is arrested for braking the law, he has to answer for it, and he must be charged. If an MP is arrested, he has to have done something for which the minimum penalty is five years — otherwise this legal system is not a box of matches. The police was the other part of the SPS rigging gang. This system, headed by SPS, does not deserve to survive. To use the police, the courts, all the reigns of power for stealing — that absolutely negates the concept of a state system, and we should therefore not exist as an organized state.

There is something in Kosovo and Metohija which was perhaps characteristic of the Turkish occupation: the families that rule are well known, and they are in SPS and everyone must bow down to them. In Klin, for example, that’s the case with family Pavlovic, whose member, Dragomir Pavlovic, is an MP in Republican Parliament. One polling station is in his house. His brothers and cousins began to physically attack SRS members from Nis, who just came to do their civic duty and to try to respect the law — which is probably the goal of every state. Even the basic rule of hospitality of greeting a visitor, regardless of where he comes from, was broken. They used clubs, pistols and automatic guns as greeting accessories.

Furthermore, the Law specifically states that five days following the election, you have the right to request voting materials, that is to say written records. Even the Election Committee of the Republic is obliged to release them, just as the state is obligated to issue an I.D. to you when you turn 18. Imagine not having any I.D. and any rights. What could you do? You could be arrested, molested — you could suffer all that as the result of not having any I.D. In the same way, we are unable to get what the Law guarantees to us, even though we have our own date which is absolutely correct.

Voters’ lists are an area of malversation which has not been investigated. We have no access there, because they are holding on to those jealously. These lists include persons deceased for over ten years, persons who emigrated, married women who changed names, and this percentage is huge. We have evidence of many calls to vote sent to persons who never lived in the cited addresses, and of persons who voted at two polling stations. That is only possible because the Socialists have the will to steal, while the lawmaker has a different measuring stick for he who brakes the law with premeditation and for he who does it out of reckless disregard. All of these fact show that SPS is a premeditated criminal, and has been premeditated for some time it its desire to stay in power at all cost while drawing on all these illegal methods.

We can also mention different ways rigging took place across Serbia. The methods used were slightly more sophisticated. At polling stations, as was done earlier, a greater number of voters was circled discreetly, and then the corresponding number of ballots was inserted into ballot boxes. There are around 10 thousand polling stations, and if they insert five ballots at each one — that amounts to 50 thousand more votes, which can be done with absolute ease.

Still, in Belgrade, things are slightly different. Let us say, on October 5 (Seselj-Lilic, second round), in the voting district of Palilula, 107,000 came out to vote; on December 7 (Seselj-Milutinovic, first round), 128,000; and on December 21 (Seselj-Milutinovic, second round), around 107,000. This is a perfect example of where there is less possibility for malversation, because force cannot be used. In New Belgrade, at polling station 94, our controller, Dejan Andjus, saw a man who inserted five ballots. Voting was stopped, ballots were counted, and five extra ballots were found. In Kosovo this is not possible. There you find a man who puts in 50 ballots, and they say — so what, you find someone who will put in just as many for you. We have footage from the first round where we were told: you find Albanians, take their I.D., and let them vote for you. It is unbelievable how low they will stoop.

We are doing everything which the law permits, while he is saying that blatant braking of the law at polling stations will carry three years of maximum security confinement. According to our information thus far, there are over a hundred such polling stations. We also filed complaints for forged records, and were convinced that at least at those polling stations, as well as at polling stations where we broke open ballot boxes — there, I admit we broke open ballot boxes — that voting would be canceled. Of course, in a repeated election the Socialists would not stand a chance in repeating the rigging, which is why they are not permitting cancellation. The Election Committee in Pec has refused to acknowledge complaints. We will direct them to the Election Committee of the Republic in Belgrade, and they also will certainly refuse complaints, so that we will go to the Supreme Court, and it will send the matter back to the Election Committee of the Republic for review, which it will refuse to do. Maybe I’m wrong, but let me be the one making the mistake. Then we will again appeal to the Supreme Court, and what can we expect when the President of that Court is Balsa Govedarica who is the acting President of the Federal Court and principal organizer of the rigging in voting districts. Aware of all these events, he at least had to suspend Milijana Koncic, President of the Election Committee in Pec, whose husband drew a gun at the polling station — which, among other things, is in their house. Find me another country where there is an election such as this. In dictatorships, elections are not held. It is known what a woman who sells love is, and people call her that, and may she do her job — but she cannot be a nun at the same time".