“We came out with the largest number of observers in these elections, which showed that people with disabilities are not afraid of challenges, but showed that they can easily overcome them,” said Blagica Dimitrovska, president of the Inclusive Association, at the panel discussion “Electoral Reforms: Wishes vs. Reality”.
“The organization of the elections was safe, although we all feared for the safety of the voters.
We have had some remarks, but they have been going on for years. Regarding the right to vote of voters with disabilities, new tools were created and we are working on improving the tools with the SEC, systemic problems remained, ie the legal framework, the persons were not on the voter list.
It has never been clear to me that the working groups, the domestic groups will not be included, and the international ones will be, we all cooperate with them and I think that they do not have the inclusive recommendations in full.
Our country is signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and has an obligation to respect their rights. Our electoral legal framework is not in line with this convention.
We have submitted a request to the Ministry of Justice to be included as an organization to give our recommendations and to represent them, because there is direct discrimination of people with deprived legal capacity, there are no statistics for these citizens and we ask to be included, therefore “None of the listed members can represent this group of citizens like us, because we have the data,” said Dimitrovska.
