Pressure on public sector employees to collect certain votes allegedly increased drastically

One of the most common pressures on citizens before the elections is the request to collect certain and “capillary” votes.

Collecting capillary votes means that the members of political organizations have the duty to secure before the election a certain number of certain votes from people who guarantee with their signature that when they go to the polling stations they will support their party.

This type of vote collection system allows the parties to assess what kind of support they have before going to the polls.

The most common targets of pressure are those who got a job thanks to the party and are employed under a fixed-term contract in the public sector, workers with lower qualifications, the unemployed, as well as people from socially disadvantaged and minority groups, according to CRTA.

After the 2022 elections, the CRTA stated in the Final Report on Recommendations that the analysis of the collected materials suggests that pressures on voters occur on a daily basis, that they are most often exerted on individuals or groups as a continuous activity over a long period of time, and not only on the eve of the elections or in during the election day.

“And then you get a call from your boss who says: "Listen, you have to collect 20 capillary votes for me". They called me, I asked what it was, he said: "Well, i need first and last names, social security numbers..." And that’s when we are supposed to call them, so they say that they will vote for so-and-so. I say: "I don't have such people". He says: "How come you don't?" "Well, I don't, I can't tell my mom who to vote for. Then I’m told, "You know, you have to, it's because of me". Because they do it to keep their positions, we do this for them and then they do it for those above them and so it’s all like a chain,” said one of the people interviewed, a city administration employee, according to CRTA.

The interviewer then asked what the reaction was when the person said no.

“I then said it was my choice that I would not, and at that time I had another boss. She said: "You think you have a choice?". I said: "I think I have",” the city administration employee said.

This is just one of the examples cited by CRTA in the Pressure on Public Sector Employees section of the Report on Recommendations from the previous year, in which the testimonies of public sector employees who experienced pressure are listed.

The interlocutors most often pointed out as benefits the retention of a job or work position, promotion, raise, receiving overtime hours or advancement in the party hierarchy. On the other hand, a long list of sanctions was identified with which the employees were faced because they resisted the pressures or were not sufficiently active or up-to-date in performing "political tasks", or were sympathizers of opposition parties, according to the CRTA Report.

In some cases, the application of "negative lists" (records of employees who are unwilling or unable to comply with the requirements) was also recorded as a mechanism of additional pressure on employees.

"The greatest pressures are seen in public utility companies"

The experience of pressure, blackmail and mobbing of employees in the public sector is recorded by the president of the Trade Union "Sloga" and MP Zeljko Veselinovic, to whom employees report complaints.

"Before every election, in almost all state-owned enterprises, we had complaints from workers and photos of those lists. This especially applies to the Public Utility Company because in that company they have a problem with constantly accepting new people and keeping them under contract. They constantly need people in order to ask for a certain number of certain votes and capillary votes from everyone they employ", explained Veselinovic.