Assessment of the election process
Skopje, 15 October 2021, 12:30 pm
The election process up to the last day of the campaign is generally conducted peacefully and in a democratic atmosphere, within the framework determined by the Constitution and Electoral Code.
Still, CIVIL’s monitoring and analyses comes to several conclusions regarding conditions that drag on from one elections to another.
Legal regulations
The first and main remarks refer to the amendments to the Electoral Code that are regularly adopted very late, even ahead of the local elections this year. This is in direct contradiction with the recommendations repeated several timesby the ODIHR, as well as by several domestic civil society organizations, among which also CIVIL.
It is not recommended to make changes in the electoral regulations at least six months before elections are held. The last amendments to the Electoral Code were adopted on September 15, just one month before Election Day.
Gender inequality
A serious remark is also made to the Macedonian political parties that in this election process as well, theydid not pay attention to gender balance. Sharp gender inequality is noted.
Women representation in candidate lists is unequal in relation to men, and there are incomparably less women candidates for mayor than men candidates.
The election statistics show that of the 571 candidate lists for municipal councils, less than half are women. In the case with candidacies for mayor, the situation is more than alarming – of the 299 candidates for mayor, only 25 are women.
In regards to the lists of candidates for members of council, in many cases only formal filling of candidate lists with women is noted, since it is clear that even fewer women will enter the final composition of the bodies of the local government.
Uneven media representation
Like in the past, in this election process there is also uneven representation of political options in the media space. Hence, according to the guidelines of the AAVMS on paid political advertising, prepared according to the relevant law, the distribution of media space for independent candidates is uneven.
Accordingly, out of 9 minutes and 30 seconds during one hour, 4 minutes are provided for SDSM and DUI, 4 for VMRO-DPMNE and the Alliance for Albanians, 1 minute for the other parliamentary political parties, and only 30 seconds for non-parliamentary parties and independent lists.
We have nothing left but to conclude that it is a matter of a legally enabled injustice against smaller political parties, and especially against independent candidates in the election race.
Violation to the right to vote of COVID-19 patients
All citizens with the right to vote who are positive to COVID-19, as well as those in self-isolation, from midnight October 12, are no longer able to exercise their right to vote. There are three-digit numbers of new cases every day. Those who have the right to vote are as if they do not have the right to vote.
According to CIVIL, any obstacle – administrative, physical or health, is a violation to the right to vote.
The state has an obligation to ensure the exercise of the right to vote for all citizens equally. Certainly, the legislative house is most responsible for this situation, where political parties have an obligation to reach consensus on these important issues and to pass legal solutions that respect human rights and freedoms maximally, including also the right to vote.
Assessment of the election campaign
CIVIL’s long-term election monitoring consists of monitoring of the conditions, events and processes in several categories, of which most have been moved to the online application on the organization’s media platform: Free elections and Citizen report. In this edition, short versions are included of several cases in different categories.
Premature campaigning
CIVIL’s long-term monitoring notes a prematurely started election camping. Most of the political parties and independent candidates comply to the legal limitations in regards to representation of the candidates and their individual programs.The political propaganda in the election context has started a long time ago, it could be said, a year ago.
Gender-based black campaign
CIVIL strongly condemns the gender-based black campaign that has especially intensified during the second half of the election campaign and is still lasting.
Once again, in the election process we are witnessing male domination in Macedonian politics. Moreover, the few women engaged in the election race for the local elections are targeted with hate speech, vulgar discrediting, complete fabrications about sex scandals, insults, slander and calls for violence.
Such criminal practice directed against women in politics has to stop, because, at the very least, it is discouragement for their inclusion in politics and in social processes.
For years, the public has been expecting from the institutions to more seriously engage in their legal obligations to protect the citizens from such and similar incidents, to find and sanction the perpetrators of such legally forbidden, and in a quite a few cases, also criminal acts.
Furthermore, continuously for years, CIVIL has been demanding from political parties that encourage or sponsor teams for creating and spreading disinformation and hate speech, to stop doing so and to dismiss these teams within their frameworks, that is, to stop encouraging and sponsoring them.
Violent incidents and threats
CIVIL notes about twenty cases of violent incidents, including explosion of a bomb in Shuto Orizari, shooting in Cair, fight in Gradsko, demolition of a vehicle in Novo Selo, as well as several isolated incidents in which there is destroying of advertising material, threats and damage to election headquarters.
Threats to life are noted also in public communication on the social networks, but CIVIL’s monitoring also notes a case with serious life threats against a candidate through electronic communication.
Abuse of children in a political campaign
CIVIL notes political abuse of children by political parties. Despite CIVIL’s public indications, parties are not removing videos in which children are used in the political context on the Internet.
Children are put in the function of these events also at gatherings and meetings with citizens.
Children must not be used in a political and election context. It is contrary to Article 12 paragraph 4 of the Law on Protection of Children, which states:
“Abuse of children for political and religious organizing and action is prohibited”.
The legal experts within CIVIL’s Monitoring Team comment this frequent occurrence in the election campaigns with the following words:
“This paragraph in the Law on Protection of Children means general prohibition on the use of children in any form of political action, including also a political election campaign”.
Abuse of events and processes in an election context
Certain events and processes have been noticed to be abused in the political propaganda with an election context with the purpose for certain entities to gain political points in the public. three topics and events are singled out as follows:
Tragedy in Tetovo
The tragedy with the fire in the modular COVID hospital in Tetovo was and still is used to discredit the political opponent.
The census – a topic of attacks also in the election context
The census has been for a longer time and still remains to be a topic on the basis of which various conspiracy theories and disinformation are woven, as well as calls for a boycott, in order to introduce divisions and interethnic intolerance, which are later used in the political propaganda.
The statement of MP Krmov will remain to be remembered, who in front of the cameras said that enumerators had been kicked out, which is a message that in itself contains an open call for violence and illegal action. The behaviour of Levica officials is extremely unacceptable and deserves condemnation.
Rescue of Afghan civilians
The rescue of Afghan civilians created an avalanche of conspiracy theories and hate speech with xenophobic content and intolerance of ethno-religious grounds.
Disinformation and manipulation against the Soros Foundation and the City of Skopje
Several media outlets and profiles on the social networks reported that the City of Skopje and the Soros Foundation had financed the scouts camp that organized activities of a camp with high school students, where there is suspicion that there was sexual abuse of minors.
The fall of Facebook and the leader of Levica
Yesterday was marked by the fall of social networks and the platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Citizens had the opportunity for at least several hours to rest from the intensive campaigning activities and content of political parties, as well as from their mutual quarrels.
Some of the opposition parties, among which also the leader of Levica, used this event to again spread disinformation that the Facebook outage had been due to a supposed censorship by NGOs from the country.
National character of the campaign
In CIVIL’s report from the first week of the election campaign, continuous calls for early parliamentary elections are noted as well.
National topics dominate in the campaign, and leaders of political parties that overshadow local candidates for positions in the local government are on the ground every day.
Politicization of some civil society organizations
CIVIL’s monitoring also notes several cases of direct participation of a civil society organization in a political campaign. For the activity of the Associations, there are legal limitations, in the sense of the basic principles of NGO’s according the Law on Associations and Foundations:
– non-partisan activity – the organizations cannot perform activities of a political party, namely, they cannot provide direct or indirect funding to a specific political party and influence the elections!
This occurrence will be a topic of a special report, analysis and recommendations from the organization.
Case: Aksios 2017
CIVIL’s monitoring, as well as CIVIL Media’s editorial office alert the public about the appearance of Aksios 2017, an organization that announced that it would be observing the election process with 500 and more observers. This organization has no website, or contact telephone, or transparently published information on its funding.
Aksios announced a call for recruiting observers just one month before the elections, which is not by far enough time to carry out selection and training of over 800 announced and already over 500 accredited observers of this organization, according to the experience of organization that have been observing elections for years.
CIVIL’s observers had an unpleasant experience with this organization at the previous elections, when, according to the report that we published on July 15, 2020 at 1.00 pm, an observer of AKSIOS, otherwise then President of a Municipal Committee of VMRO-DPMNE in Sveti Nikole, had told observers of CIVIL and MOST that they should not be at the polling station, because they had been “partisan”.
Apart from this, it is surprising that this organization, in addition to the election observation, publishes pre-election polls with an unclear methodology, which is contrary to the good practices for professional and impartial pre-election civil monitoring of elections.
Disinformation and manipulations
Disinformation is also a feature in the public communication during the pre-election period, as one of the tools of the black propaganda and attacks against political opponents. The media, various portals and social networks have become a field of real battle, with all allowed, and often also extremely impermissible and unlawful means. Disinformation was used often to achieve personal discrediting of candidates, and especially of women candidates in the elections.
Disinformation could be heard also directly from some parties and candidates, but the main channels for spreading the black propaganda with disinformation were some media, as well as well-organized party armies and infrastructure of anonymous profiles, as well as websites on the social media, mainly on Facebook and twitter.
Violation of measures for protection against COVID-19
A greater part of the political parties violates the recommendations and protocols for protection against COVID-19 during their meeting with citizens and at rallies, and also in official premises.
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In other, no less important categories of CIVIL’s election monitoring, the following is also noted:
- Abuse of official position and official premises for election purposes, as well as pressure over employees
- Refusing public debate
- Discrimination of people with disabilities
- Abuse of official position
- Introduction of fingerprint devices in the election process
ANNOUNCEMENT: CIVIL will come out with messages to the public and the citizens, as well as with recommendations to the participants in the election race tomorrow and during election silence, with maximum compliance to the democratic standards and Electoral Code.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
