Spinal surgery in 99. in Belgrade and a short visit in 2022 are what connects the man born in Ruda in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the capital of Serbia.
In his case, it is quite enough to vote in the elections held in the center of Belgrade on December 17, when the citizens of Serbia elected the local government in Belgrade, the Assembly of Serbia and the provincial government.
"I tell them on election day - don't let anyone leave me here. It's a metropolis now, different, compared to when I lived longer," says this employee of a public institution in Rudo, which is financed by budget funds from Bosnia and Herzegovina. entity Republika Srpska (RS). He also says that he voted for the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the elections in Serbia.
He spoke for Radio Free Europe (RSE) for almost half an hour, he says, "the living truth" about the details of the vote in Belgrade, where at least five buses from several cities of the RS went to Stark Arena on election day, where they were photographed by RSE journalists. .
In addition to Rudo, buses also took voters from Foča, Višegrad, Istočno Goražde and Čajnič, one of the carriers who drove to the polls told RSE.
"I voted for the first time in Belgrade and I would again"
RSE's interlocutor, a civil servant in Rudo who did not want his name and surname to be published, said that he has had a Serbian identity card with a place of residence in Belgrade for a year and a half.
He says that he also has BH. ID card with residence in Rud, although the laws of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina do not provide for the possibility that dual citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia have two residences.
He says he got it because "some people came to Rudo and brought documents".
"We filled out the papers. Then later we went to Belgrade, filled out some more papers and registered. Now, it's the only male, but it's not a male either, because that leaves the possibility of registering at some address." explains the procedure by which he obtained the ID card.
He says he never lived in Belgrade, nor in Serbia.
"A certain man waits for 10 or 15 of us (in Belgrade) and registers us at his address," explains the man from Rudo, how he got an identity card based on a fictitious residence in the capital of Serbia.
When asked if he knows "his address" in Belgrade, he says that he does, for a moment he wants to share it with RSE, but then changes his mind, because "he doesn't want anyone to have a problem."
"I mean, there will definitely be problems," he says, because "there was so much dust" due to bringing people from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Arena.
"What happened in the Arena was only their fault. I told them that too – let me talk to them [journalists in front of the Arena]. Let that journalist go with me to the polling station, let him see that I have an ID card ", he said.
In the Arena, leaflets with information on polling stations were distributed
An employee of a public institution in Rudom says that he is grateful to the organizers for providing them with transportation to vote, but he resents what happened in the Arena. For him, it was wrong and "they turned out to be criminals".
"We didn't even know that we were going to the Arena. Someone made a mistake that five buses came to the Arena, so we got in, but we can't get out, so they take pictures, they took pictures of the buses a hundred times", he tells how election day looked like in the Arena and around.
He denies that anyone voted in the Arena, but that slips were distributed there with the address where they would vote.
He says he voted at the Technical School "Drvo art" at Cara Dušana 23 in Stari Grad.
When asked if RSE would hand over a piece of paper with an address, he said: "By all means, take the piece of paper and have that too."
"Now, it's a different story that the cars took us to those locations. But they could have given us slips on the bus as well," says this resident of Rudo, who receives his salary from the budget of the municipality in the RS, whose head is from the ruling Union of Independent Social Democrats ( SNSD) Milorad Dodik, President of the RS.
During the election day, RSE journalists saw at least five vehicles with the markings of the insurance company "T&M Group Solutions" in front of the Arena, as well as a group of men without insurance markings who prevented them from entering the hall.
The Mayor of Rudo Dragoljub Bogdanović from SNSD did not want to talk to RSE.
From that municipality, they state that they do not know the details of the organized transport of local residents to vote in Belgrade.
Who paid and who drove the voters from Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Locals from Rudo in Belgrade used the bus company "In Turs" from this place.
The director of the company, Marko Novaković, told RSE that a private person ordered the transport, that is, two vehicles - a bus and a minibus.
"We drove the people of Ruđa, about 22 or 23 of them. I didn't organize anything. It was in several cities, and some people hired us to drive people. We drove them, threw them out, and then came to pick them up," says Novaković and he adds that he hasn't even been paid for the transportation services yet.
He says that he voted in Priboj, because he has an ID card from this city in Serbia, but he personally drove voters from Rudo to the capital of Serbia.
He states that it is a business secret that a private person ordered the tour to Belgrade, but when asked if it was someone from the SNSD party, he says:
"Well, you see Dodik next to Vučić [Aleksander, President of Serbia]. Everything is clear to you. Why didn't you see Trivićka [Jelena Trivić from the opposition party Narodni Front in the RS]?" says Novaković, who is the president of the Municipal Committee of the Narodni Front party.
He also says that he knows the person who ordered the transport from before and that he is from Republika Srpska.
He emphasizes that he had no motivation, except financial ones, to drive people to Serbia for the elections.
A native of Ruđa with a Belgrade address: Đilas did not bring us to Belgrade
An employee of a public institution in Rudo says that in Belgrade he voted for both the local government and the Serbian Parliament.
– "I mean, we're not children, we're not droolers. That's why they took us there, for the sake of Belgrade."
– RSE: Were they afraid of losing Belgrade?
– "Normal. I have no hair on my tongue, we know everything that is and how it is."
When asked if he knows who organized the transport, he says that he is not interested, but "let's not pretend to be crazy".
"It was not Đilas [Dragan, opposition Party of Freedom and Justice in Serbia] who brought us to vote in Belgrade."
He also said that "the phones were working" for months before the election.
"Will you, won't you... They called from some office from Ustiprača, from Kopač (BiH). I don't know whose office it is."
"They put you in the car, drive away, vote and come back"
The opposition coalition "Serbia Against Violence" and 20 civil society organizations requested the re-run of the elections in Serbia due to suspicion of election fraud and irregularities.
Several women representatives from "Serbia against violence" also started a hunger strike, demanding that the fights be cancelled.
A resident of Rudo who, as he says, voted for "Vučić" (Serbian Progressive Party, SNS) in Belgrade, states that in that case he would go to vote again in Belgrade.
"In spite of myself, I would still go and vote," was his comment. He is categorical in his claim that he was not paid to vote, he went of his own free will and is grateful for the opportunity to support the politics and party of the president of Serbia.
Voting in a country where justice does not live, claiming that citizens of Serbia do the same when there are elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to come and register in Rudo "when needed for elections".
On election day, in addition to transportation, they were provided with a sandwich and a bottle of water.
"Nobody asked for anything else. They put you in a car, drive you away, you vote, you come back," he told RSE.
Who among the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina can vote in the elections in Serbia?
In order for a BiH citizen to be able to vote in elections in Serbia, he must, in addition to dual citizenship (Serbia and BiH), also have a registered residence in Serbia.
According to the laws of Serbia, any voter who does not live on the territory of the country, including neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a voter residing abroad.
Voters had to first register through diplomatic consular representations in the unified voter list before the elections, if they wanted to vote in any of the places in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At polling stations in BiH, citizens with dual citizenship could only vote for members of the National Assembly of Serbia on December 17.
Two simultaneous residences in two countries, according to the laws of Serbia and neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, are not possible.
According to lawyer Jovan Raić, who is also a member of the Election Commission of Serbia, if a citizen of BiH wants to register his residence in Serbia, he would have to deregister it in BiH.
The provisions state that a citizen of another country, and therefore BiH, can register residence on the basis of ownership rights to an apartment, an apartment lease agreement or another legal basis. The law applies in both directions, which means that the person who declares residence in another country is obliged to deregister residence in Serbia.
It is the same with the legal rules in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which do not foresee the possibility of having two residences within the country or at the same time in the country and abroad.
Locals say that they voted the most in places along the border
At least five residents of Rudo told RFE/RL that they voted in Priboj, the town in Serbia closest to Rudo.
Most of those interviewed by RSE said that they had ID cards with residence in Priboj, but there were also those who went to Čačak or other places, exclusively, because they had been registered there for years.
Allegations about a large number of voters from the RS in Belgrade say that they found out from the media.
Božidar worked in Čačak for a long time and maintained his residence there, where he voted on December 17.
"My heart is in Šumadija. I worked there for 30 years and went all over the world with the company," says Božidar.
He explains that transportation was organized from Rudo to Priboj, from where he went on to Čačak by train.
He also said that the local communities from Serbia informed them about the vote, so he responded.
Božidar says that he has both ID cards, but that he did not vote in the RS in the last elections.
His fellow citizen Radojko, who believes that Bosnia and Herzegovina is "Serbian land", i.e. a tenant in Serbian land, points out that he did not vote in the elections in Serbia, but his family did - in Priboj, as they were all registered there.
A local who did not want to introduce himself says that he went to Sjeverin in Serbia to vote.
In the same place in Serbia near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Željko Simić, member of the Rudo Municipality Assembly from the Demos party, also voted.
His colleague from the Assembly Ilija Arsić from the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) says that he voted at a polling station for citizens of Serbia in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
All the locals who wanted to speak for Radio Free Europe pointed out that in Rudo "everyone has Serbian citizenship and ID cards in one of the places along the border".
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