Manjinsko predstavljanje kao „smokvin list” za partijsko preduzetništvo na izborima u Srbiji
MINORITY REPRESENTATION IN SERBIAN ELECTIONS AS A “FIG LEAF” FOR PARTY ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Summary/Abstract: The authors analyze the abuses of aff irmative measures in terms of candidacy and seat allocation for parties of ethnic minorities in Serbian parliamentary elections. Over the last electoral cycles, several questionable candidacies have opened the question of a liberal approach to the institutional design of electoral rules in multi-ethnic societies. In this context, the self-constitution of minority representation is enabled in the elections themselves, through parties and candidates who claim to represent the interests of different ethnic groups. In order to examine the actual establishment of such candidacies in minority communities, the authors have created the Index of ethnic voting, applying it on the sample of 10 ethnic minorities in almost 800 settlements with a minority presence, over the last seven electoral cycles since the introduction of aff irmative measures. Despite numerous ethnic parties which are truly based in minority communities, the ratio between the minority share of a local population and electoral results revealed that there are several cases when support for alleged ethnic lists came exclusively from majority group. In such cases, aff irmative measures were clearly misused in order to accomplish private political ambitions, unrelated to the representation of a particular ethnic interest.

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