The President of the State Election Commission, Oliver Derkoski, at the Conference “Like elections – like future”, organized by CIVIL – Center for Freedom, spoke about the Electoral Code passed in 2006, which until now has went through 30 changes.

“In the normal, standard procedures, in legislation it is said that a new Electoral Code should be adopted immediately. The existing one is no longer useful for work!”, considers Derkoski.

Derkoski in his speech stressed the obligation of the SEC to adhere to the implementation of the legal text, so that is why many times in the SEC they face the inability to implement a certain provision, which only confirms their position that changes are needed urgently, namely, adoption of a new Electoral Code.

“We hear the empty phrase – correct and clean elections, which is a condition for our European integrations, every day. However, what we need to do as a state, in order to have correct and clean elections, is for all stakeholders involved in the election process, to understand their obligation, in the right way, all with the purpose to receive a positive assessment at the end of the day, on April 21 and May 5”, considers Derkoski.

According to the State Election Commission, the election boards are the greatest weakness of the election processes in the country. The position of the Commission is that in the future there should be consideration about the manner of election, but also about the composition of the election boards.

“For this purpose, we have prepared a new training program for the election boards, which, unlike the previous election processes, is not carried out two days before the elections, but rather there is continuous trainings for months for the presidents, deputy presidents and members of the election boards”, said the President of the SEC.

Among else, Derkoski at the conference also presented some of the new things the SEC is introducing, like trainers from associations for people with disabilities, for organizing voting in nursing homes.

As one of the most burning issues, Derkoski pointed out the problem with the voters from the diaspora.

“For these elections, 30 million denars will be spent for 1.782 people, who have applied to vote in the diaspora, and from experience, probably not all of them will vote. This will be the most expensive vote, from the diaspora. This imposes a dilemma that we have to resolve in the next period. I am not in favour of taking away a right already given to our citizens. However, there are other problems, such as the inability to locate the number of citizens in the diaspora, because none of our citizens report their absence for more than a year from the country when they leave the country. This is a problem that additionally burdens the system and the organization of the elections. But, there are many ways in which the modality can be changed and the manner in which those people vote, in order to enable participation of those citizens in our political processes and to enable them to vote”, said Derkoski.

Маја Ivanovska
Camera: Trpe Stojanovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti