The State Election Commission published the final list of domestic and foreign observers who will be closely monitoring the voting and the possibilities of any election irregularities on April 21.
We can view the accredited organizations from several aspects – the number of observers, the reputation of the associations or institutions, the experience in electoral monitoring and the relevance of the end results from their observation.
CIVIL – Center for Freedom will be observing the elections with a total of 160 observers. CIVIL’s monitoring team is continuously on the ground, the organization itself is constantly receiving reports about the course of the election process, both from the observers and citizen journalists, and supporters and citizens on all the possible irregularities.
In terms of the other domestic organization that will be monitoring the presidential and early local elections in Ohrid, Novo Selo and Debar, first on the list is MOST, as a specialized organization for monitoring election processes as of 2002. This year they will be participating with 1940 observers.
It is interesting that the Association for Affirmation of Human Values and Youth Integration MAK-SONCE Skopje will be participating with 583 observers. An association registered in Struga in 2009 also appears with the same name. This Association appears for the first time for the 2018 Referendum with 119 observers. It is not known whether they have any report from the monitoring of the election processes.
The Association of Citizens for Development and Promotion of Tourism, Sustainable Development and Human Rights AKSIOS 2017 Skopje, which is probably formed in 2017, will be monitoring the elections with 329 observers. This association, for example, in 2018 received 350.000 denars from the budget of the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning for environmental protection by utilizing and developing social and entrepreneurial models for educational and managerial staff at the local level.
The National Roma Center had 46 observers at the 2018 Referendum, and will be monitoring the presidential elections with 20 observers. The Association “Inkluziva” will be participating in the monitoring with 44 observers, and the Association for persons with special needs “Together we can” from Gostivar will also be participating on election day with 10 observers.
This time the Macedonian Center for Culture and Development will have 8 observers.
The list of the international observation missions is interesting. OSCE/ODIHR will be participating with 195 observers and 187 translators. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, on the other hand, will have its own two observers. These elections will also be observed by the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of North Macedonia with four observers, as well as the Hungarian youth political organization “Fidelitas” with six observers. Otherwise, this youth organization is part of the biggest conservative political party in Hungary “Fidesz”, whose leader during most of its existence, from 1988, has been Hungary’s current leader, Viktor Orban.
A total of 708 international observers will be monitoring the elections, of which 289 translators and 419 observers. SEC accredited also 13 journalists, namely from the news agency Ruptly with one journalist monitoring the election process, from ORF – Austrian Radio Television with 4 journalists, BNT – Bulgarian National Television will be participating with 3 journalists and the Bulgarian National Television – TV NOVA will be monitoring with 5 journalists.
Biljana Jordanovska
