Provincial elections will be held in Vojvodina by 30 June 2024 to elect members of the Assembly of Vojvodina. Initially scheduled to be held concurrently with the local elections in most cities and municipalities in Serbia, the possibility of holding a snap election has been discussed throughout 2023.
The Serbian Progressive Party, which came to power in Vojvodina in 2016, won a supermajority of seats in the 2020 election due to the election boycott that was proclaimed by most opposition parties, including Alliance for Serbia which claimed that the election would not be free and fair. Igor Mirović also retained his position as the president of the government of Vojvodina.
Background
A populist coalition led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) came to power in Vojvodina after the 2016 election, along with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ). Since then, Igor Mirović of SNS has been the president of the government of Vojvodina. On national level in Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, who initially served as deputy prime minister and later as prime minister, was elected president of Serbia in 2017. Since he came to power, observers have assessed that Serbia has suffered from democratic backsliding into authoritarianism, followed by a decline in media freedom and civil liberties. In 2023, the V-Dem Institute categorised Serbia as an electoral autocracy, while Freedom House noted that SNS has "eroded political rights and civil liberties, put pressure on independent media, the opposition, and civil society organisations".
The For Our Children coalition, led by SNS, won a supermajority of votes and seats in the 2020 provincial election. SNS was followed by the SPS–United Serbia (JS) coalition which won 13 seats, the Vojvodina Front, led by the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), which won 6 seats; Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Movement for the Restoration of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS) each won 5 seats, while the Serbian Radical Party won 4 seats. The election was organised amidst the boycott of most opposition parties, including the leading Alliance for Serbia (SZS) coalition, which claimed that election conditions are not free and fair. Following the election, Mirović was re-elected as president of the government of Vojvodina, establishing a coalition government composed of SNS, SPS, JS, and VMSZ. Since the 2020 provincial elections, general elections were organised in Serbia in April 2022. This time, SNS led the Together We Can Do Everything coalition, which lost its parliamentary majority in the election. However, twelve electoral lists in total, including the ones from the opposition, crossed the 3 percent threshold. In Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, SNS was met with a decline in support in the election.
Electoral system
The 120 members of the Assembly of Vojvodina are elected by closed-list proportional representation from a single nationwide constituency. Eligible voters vote for electoral lists, on which the registered candidates are present. A maximum of 120 candidates could be present on a single electoral list. An electoral list could be only submitted by a registered political party; until 2023, a coalition of political parties or a citizens' group could do it as well. To submit an electoral list, at least 4,000 valid signatures must be collected, though ethnic minority parties only need to collect 2,000 signature to qualify on ballot. At least 40 percent of candidates on electoral lists must be female. The electoral list is submitted by its chosen ballot representative. An electoral list could be declined, after which those who had submitted can fix the deficiencies in a span of 48 hours, or rejected, if the person is not authorised to nominate candidates. The name and date of the election, names of the electoral lists and its ballot representatives, and information on how to vote are only present on the voting ballot.
The Provincial Electoral Commission, local election commissions, and polling boards oversee the election. Seats are allocated using the d'Hondt method with an electoral threshold of 3 percent of all votes cast, although the threshold is waived for ethnic minority parties. The seats are distributed by dividing the total number of votes received by the electoral list participating in the distribution of seats by each number from one to 120. If two or more electoral lists receive the same quotients on the basis of which the seat is distributed, the electoral list that received the greater number of votes has priority. Seats are awarded to candidates from electoral lists according to their order, starting with the first candidate from an electoral list.