Serbia, February 2-5th – Over 200 college students took part in the poll „Let’s Tell Them What Bothers Us“ that was conducted by the „Studets on the Move“ team, within the „I Choose Whom I Choose“ inititive. The aim of the poll was to gather the information about the current problems among the college students population, and the results showed that most of the participants mentioned problems regarding finances.
„This poll conveyed the number of alarming problems; it gave us the energy to endure and helt the students. Response rate was high, students were content somebody wanted to hear their opinion,“ Stefan Rancčić, the team leader, shared his impressions with us.
The poll also showed there were thirty students interested in taking part in the further acitivites of the team, so one of the next steps will be the meeting with them. Besides that, the team will select five problems that appeared as most urgent and work on solving them in cooperation with the MPs.
“I Choose Whom I Choose” is the initiative for Serbian election system reform that is carried out by the citizens of twelve cities, gathered around the National Coalition for Decentralization, Media and Reform Center Niš and CSO Serbia on the Move. Induced by the fact that citizens don’t choose their representatives in the Parliament, but the political parties are making that choice instead because the malfunctioning election system allows them to, the activists inform their fellow citizens about the flaws of the current election system and motivate them to join the initiative. The goal of the initiative is to reform the election system in Serbia in order to provide equitable geographic representation of citizens in the Parliament, accountability of chosen representatives, gender equality in the Parliament and representation of minority groups and communities.
I choose whom I choose – putting the citizens’ and community interests in front of political parties