Opposition: Ghost voters accounted for 30 pct of ballots in elections

BELGRADE - A Serbia Against Violence member of the national electoral commission said on Friday the opposition coalition's legal team had determined that ghost voters accounted for 30 pct of ballots cast in the December 17 elections.

At a press conference outside the commission's building in central Belgrade, Tanasije Marinkovic said the ghost voters' names were on invitations to vote sent to apartment buildings where they had no residence at all.

He said the invitations had been submitted by citizens who really lived in the buildings and who had said the people were not their neighbours and did not live there.

Marinkovic said the claim was based on a review of 1,300 ballots.

"This raises serious doubts about the orderliness of electoral rolls in Serbia and, by extension, about the legality and legitimacy of the entire process," he said.

Sofija Mandic, a Serbia Against Violence member in the City of Belgrade electoral commission, said there was a problem with electoral rolls and ghost voters, and added that an international investigation was necessary and that the Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime needed to be alerted as well.