by: BILJANA JORDANOVSKA
CIVIL has been monitoring the election processes, including referendums at the local and national level, since 2008. Following the social and political situation in the area of human rights and freedoms, peace, non-violence, social justice, freedom of speech and media freedom, prevention of armed violence is something that is closely and continuously on a daily basis monitored.
CIVIL, as an organization, including the numerous projects and activities in the domain of art and culture, education and civic education, is always loud, alert and uncompromising in its demands for respect for human rights, for a free and democratic society. Therefore, when it comes to protection of the voting rights in any given context, in an election year or not, CIVIL does not withdraw from its commitments and demands. In fact, all of its projects and activities related to the election processes are implemented from the position of defending the voting rights, while its starting point and principle are: THE state has the obligation to provide maximum conditionS FOR RESPECTING AND FULFILLING EVERY INDIVIDUAL’S VOTING RIGHT
ELECTORAL MODEL ACCORDING TO CIVIL’S RECOMMENDATIONS
With the merging of all six electoral units into one, the system will provide more opportunities for the smaller political parties and various communities to compete for representation in the Parliament. This will contribute to overcoming the domination of just a few big political parties on the political scene and a situation in which the smaller political parties have no other option but to form a coalition in which they serve only as a figure, without any possibilities to accordingly represent those who elected them.
This would also ease the complications in regards to the different and disproportional number of voters in the electoral units, as is the case years back. With open lists, voters will have greater control over who they will choose as a representative in the municipality/city, country, that is, Parliament.
The electoral model never underwent changes, and solutions, which would lead to representation of all communities and of smaller political parties, such as the model in which the whole country would be one electoral unit, have never taken into consideration.
At the same time, open lists of candidates will provide greater democracy within the framework of the political parties, and what is more important, will increase the responsibility of MPs. The voting of the diaspora has to be redefined to ensure that the value of the vote from the diaspora is equal to the one of the voters in the country. The most efficient way to achieve this would be to transform the state into one electoral unit in which the diaspora would vote.
CIVIL has long ago proposed for the number of MPs in Parliament to be reduced to 80, along with many other reforms in the political system and in exercising government.
REFORMS IN THE SEC
Even though the SEC underwent drastic changes, still, suspicions of party involvement in its composition remain. The current composition of SEC was formed on July 25, 2018, right before the announcement of the Referendum for the name. The MPs of all the parties voted for the members of SEC, who agreed that the temporary composition of SEC should be chosen according to the old model, that is, with members proposed by parties with the most votes won at the last elections.
The recommendation of CIVIL that SEC needs to be formed on the basis of independent experts in the field of electoral law, remained as an option for some other times, when there no longer will be an excuse that there is a political crisis, early elections, unpostponable referendum. However, the temporary composition of the SEC, is slowly becoming a permanent one with a five-year mandate.
The recommendation that the SEC should be the main holder of all the activities related to the elections, with an increase of competencies, was partly realized with the changes in the Electoral Code, which were agreed at a leaders’ meeting, along with the composition of the SEC, but more in the context of transferring part of the responsibilities of the financing of political parties to the State Audit Office and State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and regulation of the funds for an election campaign, for the needs of the presidential elections in 2019.
ELECTORAL CODE
The recommendation of CIVIL is that the Electoral Code, which is the main tool for the implementation of the electoral processes, needs to be rewritten. Even though in the past years it was insisted that changes be made that would protect the voters’ right, would introduce stricter sanctions and responsibility for election irregularities and violations by the election administration, a different approach and restrictions in the media reporting with the purpose of objective, balanced and timely informing of citizens during the election processes, CIVIL from today’s perspective, is demanding for a new, rewritten Electoral Code.
The President of the SEC, himself, Oliver Derkoski, at the conference “Like elections – like future” confirmed CIVIL’s longstanding efforts for preparation of a new Electoral Code, and highlighted that the Electoral Code has been changed more than 30 times. Instead of improving it, it has become chaotic and incompatible with the other laws, such as the Criminal Code, the Law on Prevention of Corruption and Conflict of Interests, key for preventing and sanctioning election irregularities.
That is why CIVIL demands complete reforming of the Code, but not in the manner as it was in the spring of 2018 after initiating by the Ministry of Justice, participation of political parties and civil society organizations to formally show that work is being done on the case, for later the Parliament to adopt them as the leaders of the bigger political parties had agreed.
At the same time, CIVIL insists on full harmonization of the new Electoral Code with other laws that impact the electoral processes, as well as harmonization of the very institutions that will implement these laws fully, timely, transparently and objectively, without party influence.
CIVIL recommends in the new Electoral for authorized persons for submitting complaints to also be relevant organizations, domestic and foreign, specialized for monitoring of the election processes, thus avoiding party influence on the final outcome of the elections in terms of overburdening the SEC’s services with insignificant complaints. As an objective side, these monitoring organizations can contribute in prevention of election irregularities.
ELECTION ADMINISTRATION
CIVIL’s recommendation in regards to the election administration is in the direction of enabling the Municipal Election Commissions (MEC) to function regardless of the financial situation of the municipalities and should be financed by the state.
The members of the Municipal Election Commissions should be independent, trained experts, and not representatives of political parties and political interests. The Municipal Election Commissions must not remain as just another place for party employment. They must be enabled to increase their efficiency, responsibility and transparency. At the same time, Municipal Election Commissions must be reduced to rational proportions.
Members of the Election Boards have many times proved complete lack of knowledge and have violated the Electoral Code and procedures during elections. In the future, the SEC has to introduce more efficient and more thorough training of the Election Boards, based on practice and findings from the election monitoring missions and citizen complaints.
Accessibility to the polling stations must become a reality, and not a declarative opinion. More than one third of the polling stations in the country are not accessible for people with disabilities. The government and the SEC should identify all polling stations in regards to accessibility and make them 100% accessible. The election material (ballots, guidelines, etc.) has to be understandable and accessible to all, including the people with vision impairment.
Gender equality should become a solid criterion. In places where the number of members of a certain structure is an odd number, the percentage has to be in favor of female members, starting from the composition of the members of the Commission.
VOTERS REGISTER
Taking into consideration that the biggest problem and greatest irregularities with the Voters Register happen much earlier, precisely during the public inspection when most of the complaints of the citizens refer the so called phantom voters, CIVIL’s recommendation is full revision of the Voters Register, because it has been in a catastrophic state for a long time, which has deepened from one election cycle to the next.
The efforts for improving the Voters Register should go in parallel with improvements in several areas. One of the measures, certainly, is the need for improving the text of the Law on Registration of Residence and Temporary Residence, as well as its consistent application, in order to avoid additional manipulations with the number of voters and a demographic intervention. The perception that the census has a determining influence on the quality of the Voters Register is wrong, because they are two completely different operations.
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FINAL NOTE These are just the key recommendations of CIVIL regarding the systematic changes before thoroughly engaging in a complete analysis of the electoral processes, the ultimate goal of which are serious reforms of the electoral system in our country. In its work and communication with the public, CIVIL has prepared and shared hundreds of documents with reports, announcements, analyses, and recommendations to the institutions, political parties, the Government, the Parliament, the media and all other stakeholders and decision makers in the country. It is a strong commitment of the organization to continue monitoring the events and processes in an electoral context with the same pace, and to submit its analyses and recommendations to the relevant institutions and the public.
RESOURCES
Links to publications dedicated to the election processes issued by CIVIL, available in the online Library of CIVIL:
Unscrupulous struggle for power (2013)
Elections 2014: Disqualified Democracy (2014)
My voting right (2015)
Free Elections: A non-negotiable condition (2016)
Promises and abuses (2018)
Everything you wanted to know about elections (2019)
