The election administration is the cause of more than half of the irregularities that CIVIL’s observers noted on the day of the early parliamentary elections, shows the initial analyses of reports of 314 observers. In 421 reports of the observers on election irregularities, the election administration is the cause in 222. The citizens are at the second place, namely, the voters (or non-declared political party activists), in 62 cases, while the political parties are at the fourth place, as causes of irregularities in 37 reports.
More than a quarter of the reports, or 115, have indicated too many categories of irregularities to be able to be included in any of the 16 standardized categories of irregularities. The most numerous individual category is “unlawful behavior”, with a total of 90 incidents, of which 64 are in regard to unlawfulness of the work of the election commissions, 18 to unlawful behavior of party structures, and the rest to individuals.
The new category of irregularities, introduced for this election cycle, more specifically, violation of the protocols for protection against the coronavirus, is the second according to the number of violations, with 54 reports where it is the main irregularity noted in the individual reports, whilst there is a dozen of reports in which it is one of the secondary.
Observers submitted hundreds of reports on classic election irregularities: 29 reports on problems with the Voters Register, 22 on violation of the secrecy of voting, 20 on various forms of threats and pressures, 14 on family or group voting and 13 on problems with the election material. In addition, there are 10 cases of violation of the election silence, six of unprofessional and biased behavior of observers and two cases in which they had been obstructed in their work. In one case, in Prilep, in front of the primary school “Kire Gavriloski”, in which several polling stations are located, one person had come to vote with a firearm and at the same time attacked a fellow citizen in the schoolyard. The police had intervened and the person had been detained.
The monitoring also registered 11 cases of abuse of official position, by members of election boards in telephone contact with parties, from photographing personal documents, to party activists in the role of observers.
The reports in which suspicions of vote-buying are expressed cause particular attention. In addition to 3 reports on vote-buying and two on corruption, such allegations can also be seen in a series of other reports, among which also those on unlawful behavior of political parties.
In the reports on vote-buying, it is stated that in the villages of Zhiganci and Sekularci in the Municipality of Cheshinovo-Obleshevo “a member of a political party and advisor in a coalition with VMRO-DPMNE, with an Audi with Bulgarian license plates, had been carrying money for voting at home”. In Gostivar, on the other hand, in the evening hours “there is greater movement of party activists, VMRO and SDSM have engaged activists to take voters from home and to bring them to the polling stations. In Chajle and in Balin Dol in a tea shop there are party activists calling voters and writing down their names”. A report from Kumanovo states that in front of the school “Hristijan Todorovski-Karpos”, in the neighborhood of Banovo Trlo, “a jeep with foreign license plates is noticed carrying voters. A conversation is heard between a voter and a member of an election board with the voter confirming that she had come with him and that he would take her from there”.
In two reports, suspicions of corruption at polling station in the “Gjorgji Pulevski” school in Aerodrom are stated, where two people had been handing out bags with meals, juice, sandwiches and desserts in just 3 classrooms to the election boards and had said to them “you know who the greeting is from”, and members of a Local committee of “Vardar” had been handing out sandwiches to the election board.
The following examples are stated among the reports for unlawful behavior of party structures: in Prilep members of parties offer and conduct transportation for weak and frail people not registered to vote the day before the voting, in Probistip a party activist of SDSM carries voters in a car to polling stations in the primary school Kiril and Metodij – Zletovo, in Stip organized transportation of voters circulated around the city the entire morning, reported by citizens, caught carrying a woman from home to the polling station and back, at polling stations on the territory of the municipalities of Zrnovci and Karbinci, Cheshinovo-Obleshevo, DUI observers had appeared, who according to the citizens conducted vote-buying.
Suspicions of vote-buying are indicated in at least a dozen more reports. Among them, in Aerodrom for a person who had led a dozen elderly people with him and waited for them in front of the polling station to finish their voting, in Kocani two people had waited for people “from VMRO to bring them money to vote for them”, in Chair where a party had been bringing people to vote and in Tetovo “an observer of DPMNE who had been smoking outside, had taken a mask out of the car and given it to a person coming to vote, at the same time saying to that person: “Ljupco, you know, 14 is the number”, while the person replying: “Have I two-timed you so far” and had went in to vote.
At polling stations in Radanski Pat, on the other hand, a “Bulgarian train” had been noted among Roma voters. Transportation had been organized for them to the polling stations in the primary school “Goce Delchev” and back to Radanski Pat. After the voting, a person had waited for them in front of the school “and follows them with a red caravan vehicle and when exiting the person gives the ID cards where the people are directed to Radanski Pat between three buildings where another person waits for them who gives them each 1000 denars” to vote for number 14. “Some residents from Radanski Pat had demanded for the money to be paid to them as in the previous election they hadn’t been paid, and because of those reasons some of them had refused to give their ID cards”.
Another attempt for a “Bulgarian train” was noted in primary school “May 25” in Singjelic in the Municipality of Gazi Baba. According to testimonies of members of the election board and OSCE/ODIHR observers, a citizen wanted to leave the polling station with the ballot, and invalid ballots with a signature had also been found, for which one member of the election board had explained that in this way they mark those who have taken money to vote.
Igor k. Ilievski
