A single constituency and open lists is a proposal that has been discussed since 2016, but so far the change in the manner of conducting the electoral processes in our country has not been made.
CIVIL, as an organization that has been conducting election monitoring since 2008, has been for years recommending and demanding for North Macedonia to be a single constituency, which would democratize the electoral processes. On several occasions over the years, CIVIL has repetitively alerted on the needs of a single constituency and electoral reforms, which would finally provide free and democratic electoral processes, without the usual election irregularities that have become a practice at every election.
Prime Minister Zoran Zaev also gave declarative support for electoral reforms, one constituency and open lists even before the elections in 2017, then and ahead of the parliamentary elections, in the period between the presidential elections and the announcing of the early parliamentary elections in 2019.
Even a parliamentary initiative was formed in September 2019, which included 12 MPs from 10 political parties and one independent MP. On that occasion, on September 25, 2019, CIVIL organized a big conference on the electoral reforms, where all political parties, experts and representatives of NGOs were invited, as one of the first organizations to raise this change in the electoral model of our country.
The Ministry of Justice, at the beginning of 2021, started work on amendments to the Electoral Code. For this purpose, a working group was established that included representative of civil society organizations, among which CIVIL as well, the State Election Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the State Audit Office, political parties and experts who according to the recommendations of the OSCE-ODIHR, but also of all relevant stakeholders, worked on specific amendments by articles and paragraphs in the Code itself.
CIVIL as an organization that closely and continuously monitors the electoral processes, actively participated in the working group for amendments to the Electoral Code. Some of CIVIL’s recommendations for amendments to the Electoral Code refer precisely to the topic that various political actors have actualized these days: A single constituency – Introduction of open lists, which are in the context of the remaining changes that CIVIL recommends: Reforms of the SEC, including also of the structure of the institution – Authorized persons for submitting complaints to also be relevant domestic organizations that conduct monitoring of election processes – Purification of the Voters Register – Extension of the deadline for training and education, as well as election of members of MEC and EB, in cases when it concerns regular election cycles – Regulating the period from the announcement of the elections until the official start of the election campaign, when participants in the election processes find a way to circumvent the law and start early election campaigns long before the legally provided framework – Changes in the manner, dynamics and size of campaigns for education of voters.
These recommendations for amendments to the Electoral Code are published in CIVIL’s publication “Local Elections 2021: Lessons Learned”.
D.М.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
