The Serbian Embassy in Washington has been in a state of siege for days because of the elections, while interested citizens are unable to obtain any information regarding the electoral process, applications and decisions they are supposed to receive from the embassy as confirmation that they can vote on October 24 (voters in America vote one day earlier).
Following information we received from our readers, who have been unsuccessfully calling the Embassy’s duty phone for days, we tried the same thing and encountered – a wall of silence.
We repeatedly called the phone number that, according to official service rules, should be available to Serbian citizens 24 hours a day, but nobody answered on the other end.
According to the information we received, the duty contact phone, which among other things serves to allow citizens to inform our diplomatic staff about crisis and critical situations, deaths and similar matters, is under the responsibility of Consul Jelena Kovačević, head of the Embassy’s Consular Department.
And the reasons for her failure to answer are, as we learned from reliable sources close to Serbian diplomacy, political in nature.
“The consul told Embassy employees a week ago that she would not answer phone calls until October 3, when the deadline for registering voters from the diaspora expires,” our source claims, adding:
“Jelena Kovačević’s behavior toward Embassy employees, particularly her mistreatment of young diplomats, has caused a quiet rebellion, so communication with her on their part has been reduced to a minimum, which triggers furious and hysterical reactions from her.”
The only person who, according to our interlocutor, has sided with the consul is Ambassador Dragan Šutanovac.
“Although nobody in Belgrade asked the two of them to do so, the ambassador and consul have been discussing the formation of some kind of crisis teams these days, with the aim of preventing the Students’ List from winning at any cost. At one point, the possibility of smashing the ballot box was also mentioned if it were determined that the students would triumph at the polling station in the Embassy.”
Finally, we should add that the vast majority of Serbian Times readers who have submitted requests to the Embassy to vote have still not received any feedback as to whether they will legally be allowed to exercise their voting rights.
We will continue to follow developments at the Serbian Embassy in Washington in the coming days and keep you regularly informed…
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Source:: Antonije Kovačević Foto: Promo
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