Home > 1. The principles of Europe's electoral heritage > SERBIA - Joint Recommendations on the Laws on Parliamentary, Presidential and Local Elections and Electoral Administration
 
 
 
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Paragraph 43
 
Article 84 of the law allows a party to arbitrarily choose which candidates from its list become members of parliament, after the elections, instead of determining the order of candidates beforehand. This limits the transparency of the system and gives political parties a disproportionately strong position vis-à-vis the candidates. Under proportional representation systems, the order on the list usually determines the allocation of mandates; otherwise, mandates are allocated on the basis of preferential votes for candidates. The current system results in voters not knowing which candidates are likely to be seated as a result of their support for a particular party. The OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission recommend that the law should be amended to oblige political parties and coalitions to determine and announce the order of candidates on their list before the elections, rather than allowing them to choose after election day which candidates will be awarded mandates.