CIVIL today at a press conference presented its recent findings of the long-term monitoring of the early parliamentary elections. It concerns a complex monitoring, with the latest methodologies that are compatible with the monitoring of domestic and foreign missions.

CIVIL’s monitoring team noted the following in several categories:

THREATS AND PRESSURE – Various types of threats and pressure are noted in Skopje, Stip, Tetovo and Jegunovce. Activists of certain political parties carry out pressure and threaten citizens.

POLITICAL FINANCING – Political financing is a subject of CIVIL’s monitoring. We expect to receive timely and transparent reports from political parties on how their campaigns are financed and how those funds are spent. Regardless of whether the campaigns are anonymous, from the content of the materials that is being distributed around the country, that is, online campaigns, the ones ordering them can be easily found. We expect for them to disclose this information to the public. We demand from the political parties to rely on other laws as well, and not just the Electoral Code. Unfortunately, the political financing gives the bigger parties a huge advantage at the expense of the smaller political parties.

The situation of the grey zone has also been noted, which is not regulated legally during this period, but an active campaign is noted.

 HATE SPEECH – Hate speech is most notable and most intensive, which for a long time now is one of the two main tools for leading a political fight in the country that is generated by certain political parties and groups close to them. CIVIL’s team by far did not manage to register all cases of hate speech in the election context. There are at least ten cases of hate speech noted every day, with the participation of at least five different participants in verbal settling of scores on the internet. In just one month, over 300 separate cases have been registered, not taking into consideration the TV debates that are broadcasted live on Facebook. The TV duel on Kanal 5 between SDSM President Zoran Zaev and VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski on February 28, can serve as an illustration for the scale and proportions of hate speech present on the social networks, and the contents generated by TV stations. A disproportional number of the comments on the Facebook page of Kanal 5 were negative or contained explicit hate speech.

According to CIVIL’s analysis, it can be noted that in many cases it concerns coordinated online attacks of individuals, among which are analysts, activists, journalists and politicians. Furthermore, the EU, NATO and Western democracies are also the target of organized hate speech. The attacks are on a personal basis, ad hominem, usually on a political, ethnic, religious and gender basis.

CIVIL’s monitoring also notes many graffiti with hate speech, primarily, with nationalistic contents. Examples of such graffiti are seen in Skopje, Stip and Kumanovo.

FAKE NEWS, DISINFORMATION AND BLACK PROPAGANDA

CIVIL intensified its monitoring on fake news, disinformation and black propaganda until March 1. To this date, the number of registered cases of hate speech on a daily basis is between 2 and 5, but the multiplication is of huge proportions, as the contents are downloaded and distributed in an organized manner and inflict enormous damage to the election process and the right of citizens to objectively inform themselves in order for them to exercise their right to vote on April 12. All possible information is being abused, and among them we can also outline topics such as the migrant crisis and the coronavirus that were used for spreading disinformation and panic among people.

ABUSE OF CHILDREN FOR ELECTION PURPOSES

Abuse of children is usually noted online, where children wrap themselves in flags, show symbols and similar. Children must be protected from the poison of politics that is being spread during this period.

ABUSE OF OFFICIAL POSITION AND PUBLIC RESOURCES

CIVIL reported about several cases of abuse of official position and public resources for party and propaganda goals. The public is well aware of the cases of abuse by several ministers and deputies in the past month.

PROBLEMS WITH THE VOTERS REGISTER – Just before the press conference, CIVIL received a report from a citizen who reported 6 phantom voters on his address, and there are probably 6 more in his building. He has not received a relevant response from the institutions. We have been noting the problem with the Voters Register for 11 years, and it still has not been overcome. We know the problems of 2013, with voters who did not exist but still voted.

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An analysis is currently being prepared on the character and messages of the campaigns of the political parties in the pre-election period. This will be an extensive video material, accompanied with analyses and photos. All findings will be publically presented in it in detail.

CIVIL will prepare a register of politicians, media outlets, Facebook and Twitter profiles that are spreading hate speech, fakes news and disinformation in the election context and will give it for public insight and correction.