The Macedonian Center for Culture and Development (MCCD) presented its Final report on the monitoring of the early parliamentary elections, on February 15, 2017. No one came to the scheduled press conference, except for the representative of CIVIL Media. The President of MCCD, Nelko Nelkovski and his three associates did, however, hold a presentation in the empty restaurant hall.

Nelkovski said that the monitoring of MCCD had been focused on preventing violence. According to MCCD’s report though, the elections on December 11, 2016 were marked by three characteristics: peaceful election day, calm election campaign and peaceful post-election period.

As to CIVIL Media’s question on how they assess the events that took place in front of the State Election Commission, while complaints that were submitted by political parties were being reviewed, where the public witnessed calls for divisions and ethnic tensions, for violence, for a “night of long knives” and exceptionally fierce vocabulary directed towards civil society and the international community by the leader and other senior representatives of VMRO-DPMNE…, for MCCD President Nelko Nelkovski, it is good enough, as he says, that “not a drop of blood was shed and there were no dead people”.

“It is true that there was harsh rhetoric, barrels were set on fire, but that was for them to warm themselves, which was normal, having in consideration the low temperatures…Firecrackers were being thrown, but we were there the whole time and there was no violence or any victims. Often there is confusion and human peace, when there are no victims, is identified with political peace. However, we can conclude that we have ‘Swedish elections’, stated Nelkovski.

For MCCD, as it can be noted from the Final Report, hate speech, calls for violence and pressure on the work of the SEC are not enough in order to criticize the events in the post-election period. The only thing that this organization, as an observer at the elections, is interested in is, whether there is any physical violence or dead people, something which, in a country that has been independent and democratic for 27 years now, should be overcome as a possible scenario and one that should strive for elections where the voters can vote according to their own belief, without pressures and threats.

In addition to the election day observation, with one observer in every town, MCCD had also realized meetings in party headquarters and at rallies of most political parties that participated in the elections. CIVIL – Center for Freedom, immediately after the elections in December, reacted to the report of the NGO MCCD, in which, among else, it claims that the elections were a “celebration of democracy, carried out without a single incident, at all polling stations, in all the cities and villages of Republic of Macedonia”, which according to MCCD “speaks about the maturing of the entire nation” and “confirms the development of Republic of Macedonia as an Electoral Democracy”!

In the report, MCCD begins its “Assessment…” by expressing praise “to all institutions involved in the implementation of the parliamentary elections in 2016; political parties, the Government and the Prime Minister for conducting the elections (!?), the Ministry and the Minister of Interior and the State Election Commission. This includes all members of political parties, the entire police, all members of electoral boards and the municipal election commissions and all the citizens of Republic of Macedonia”!

The only ones who were left without any praises from MCCD, as CIVIL pointed out, were the “phantoms”, the “disappeared” citizens, the passengers of the “Bulgarian train”, those who threatened, pressured and who spread fear…