GSA: Questionnaire for candidates in national elections

Belgrade, 04.03.2014.

As part of its campaign “Your vote, your tomorrow”, Gay Straight Alliance (GSA; Alliance) has sent a set of questions (questionnaires) to the political parties and groups that take part in national elections, on the human rights of LGBT people and what they intend to do to improve the situation of the LGBT community in Serbia if they come to power.

tvojGLAStvojeSUTRAThe questionnaire is slightly different from the one from the previous campaign in 2012 and contains four specific issues over which political parties, or more precisely their candidate from the list for the parliamentary elections, who is chosen by the party, can best represent their views and solutions on this topic. Questions that the GSA included in the questionnaire are:

  • What has your political party done to improve the situation of the LGBT community in Serbia since the previous national elections which were held in 2012?
  • What do you see as the main challenges and priorities that need to be tackle in the next Parliamentary Assembly and the Government of Serbia regarding human rights of LGBT people and what are the solutions that you’ll advocate?
  • Does your political party support the legal regulation of property relations, health insurance and other issues of importance to same-sex unions?
  • Why LGBT people should vote for your political party/coalition in the upcoming elections?

GSA will publicly present all received responses and expects from the political parties and groups that take part in the electoral process to respond to this call and answer to this questionnaire, and additionally to turn to the LGBT community, which is a significant part of the electorate, but also to all other interested citizens.

On the occasion of this activity, Mirjana Bogdanović, the Executive Director of the Alliance said:
“Political parties that participate in this election campaign talk more about the LGBT rights than they did before. However, through monitoring their views and through activities that we do in our campaign ’Your Vote, Your Tomorrow’ we noticed that these views are largely related to the Pride Parade on which the vast majority of them already stated their opinion considerably. Parade is important, but the human rights of LGBT people do not solely depend on it, but many other aspects are important when talking about improving the situation of LGBT people in Serbia.
That is why we developed a questionnaire that actually follows the framework where pre-electoral campaigns take place, i.e. what has been done, what they will do if they come to power and why LGBT people should vote just for their political option.
I have to say that for LGBT people, as well as for all other citizens of Serbia, economic issues are also very important, such as better living standard, employment, followed by education, health etc. But when deciding for who to vote important topics for the LGBT people also include: safety, legal security, increase of tolerance, reduce of violence and discrimination and so on. Therefore we expect from the political parties that through this questionnaire and through the clear political messages in the election campaign, to address the LGBT community in a  deserving manner as they do with other minority groups and citizens in general, and not to ignore it.”

Info Center GSA

Gay Straight Alliance (GSA; Alliance) has started another campaign in this election cycle for the upcoming Serbian parliamentary elections – the new campaign is called “Your vote, your tomorrow“. The campaign’s goal is to make political parties and groups participating in the elections take a public stance on questions regarding human rights, including the rights of LGBT people, as well as to include these issues in their pre-election programmes and platforms, offering concrete solutions for reducing violence, discrimination and homophobia. Another aim of the campaign is to invite LGBT people, as well as their parents, relatives, friends and other citizens to vote for those political options which, among other things, advocate for improving the status of LGBT people, for equality and respect of human and minority rights.
Through various activities, GSA aims to offer LGBT people and all other citizens, a clear insight into the attitudes of all relevant political parties and coalitions, regarding LGBT human rights. GSA’s campaign “Your vote, your tomorrow“ will mostly take part on the Internet and through social networks, and all interested citizens will be able to follow the campaign on GSA’s website in the column Elections 2014 (www.en.gsa.org.rs/elections-2014), and on the social networks Facebook (www.facebook.com/GSAlijansa) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/GSAlijansa).

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube