“Our organization observed the elections in 2014 and 2016. Today we present the report on prevention during elections. Prevention as a way of thinking is very important in society, especially in the election process. We visited all of the political parties and the most responsible politicians in relation to the elections, the previous Prime Minister, the Minister of Interior and we came to a conclusion that in this area there is still room for work to be done in order to have peaceful elections”, stated Nelko Nelkovski, President of the Macedonian Center for Culture and Development (MCCD) at today’s press conference in front of the Memorial House of Mother Teresa.
The place where the press was held is a very important fact, without any explanation, although Nelkovski insisted that the house be seen in the background. But, from what was presented we can only say: peaceful elections, a peaceful pre-election campaign, a peaceful election day, a peaceful post-election period, that is, peaceful elections in 2014 and 2016. We received this as a report from MCCD in October 2017, ten days before the local elections. At the press conference there was no explanation on why we need to see these reports now…
Nevertheless, these elections were also mentioned…Nelkovski says that preventively, we need to take a look at the case of Catalonia, not because of other things, but because it is very important not to have a drop of blood shed at these elections.
And since two mayor candidates, one in Kicevo and the other in Shuto Orizari, have already “bled” as Nelkovski said, the responsibility for the current government is immense, well perhaps also for the opposition, the others it seems are only a figure.
“Everything that happened in Catalonia absolutely has an impact around world, but also on our election process, and I believe that we will all learn a lesson in that peace, the rule of law and democracy are the basic foundations on which a contemporary country such as Republic of Macedonia should be based on”, stated Nelko Nelkovski.
From the report “Prevention during elections” that was presented today for the second time, the following can also be mentioned:
“Compliments for all involved institutions, political parties, the Government, Prime Minister, the ministries and of course the State Election Commission for the successfully conducted parliamentary elections 2016”, an evaluation for December 11 or “First round of presidential and parliamentary elections 2014 as PEACEFULL, FAIR and DEMOCRATIC that ended in an almost perfect electoral atmosphere…elections, which rank Republic of Macedonia in developed democratic countries…and the prevention in the approach of the MOI and the political parties has proven itself for the first time”.
We still have to wait for the “Roadmap of the future”, unless the condemnation for the attacks on Elvis Bajram and Alit Abazi and the responsibility that the institutions and participants have in the election process aren’t supposed to lead somewhere…Was this a prediction or something else, it remains unclear.
According to Nelkovski’s statement, the citizens and the electorate are not praiseworthy, they do not participate in elections and, according to that logic, they are not even in the future. They do not need education on prevention during elections.
Actually, the question is what is MCCD preventing?
Let us recall that when the report from their monitoring of the elections in 2016 came out, an extensive text was published on CIVIL Media that raised the question: Which elections did the MCCD monitor? And where? With an addition, where were they and what were they observing in 2014?
And what will they be observing and where will they be during these elections?
And lastly, is this statement a trigger for a report of the MCCD for the local elections, which will contain real assessments or just proof that the roadmap to the future has long been set and that we should be faithful to the grave?
Biljana Jordanovska
