DIASPORA

AMBASSADOR ŠARAC IS SILENT: No one at the Serbian Embassy in Madrid is responding to people’s voter registration requests!

by Serbian Times21. September 2026.21. September 2026.

Several Serbian citizens living in Spain claim that for days they have received no response whatsoever from the Serbian Embassy in Madrid after submitting valid applications to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

As the organization “Eko Straža” posted on social media, several followers reported that they contacted the Serbian Embassy in Spain by email, but that they had received neither a response nor confirmation even after more than six days.

Who is Irena Šarac: From the fuel scandal to the embassy

Irena Šarac, a former official at the Serbian Embassy in Greece, is currently Serbia’s ambassador to Spain. She is well known to the public for a major fuel scandal involving around two million euros.

Despite such a record, by a decision of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Šarac was rewarded and appointed ambassador in Madrid at the end of 2023.

The clock is ticking: Registration deadline is October 3!

The upcoming parliamentary elections in Serbia are scheduled for October 25, 2026, and Serbian citizens abroad who wish to exercise their right to vote must first submit a request through a diplomatic-consular mission.

The deadline for submitting applications is midnight on October 3, 2026. After that deadline, applications can no longer be processed through the Unified Voters’ Register system, which is why every hour is precious.

This means that citizens in Spain who have been waiting for a response for more than six days have less and less time to receive confirmation or potentially correct any problem with their documentation.

The procedure stipulates that the diplomatic-consular mission forwards the request to the competent municipal administration in Serbia, and only after a decision is issued is the information entered into the voter register. Because of this administrative chain, the embassy’s failure to respond to emails directly excludes citizens from the electoral process.

What does the law say?

Precisely because the deadline is strictly limited, this raises the question of serious responsibility for deliberately obstructing citizens from exercising their right to vote.

Article 155 of Serbia’s Criminal Code (“Violation of the Right to Vote”) clearly stipulates that anyone who, with the intention of preventing another person from exercising their right to vote, unlawfully fails to enter them into the voter register or otherwise prevents them from voting risks a prison sentence of up to one year. If force or threats are used, the prescribed sentence is between three months and three years in prison.

In addition, Article 159 (“Preventing the Conduct of Voting”) provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any unlawful obstruction of the electoral process.

Deliberate sabotage or complete system breakdown?

Although simply failing to respond to emails does not automatically mean that a criminal offense has been proven, the fact that Ambassador Irena Šarac and her staff remain silent while citizens’ registration deadline is approaching leaves room for only one question: is this sheer incompetence or deliberate obstruction of voters in the diaspora?