Following a reaction that was sent by a person from Ohrid to a Skopje portal, on phantom voters supposedly existing in Ohrid, a long-term observer of CIVIL – Center for Freedom visited the address that was mentioned and sent us a report, according to which even though one of the “phantoms” figures as a voter in the second entrance of building 369, the building actually has just one entrance!
The tenants in the apartment in which the second “phantom” figures, said that this person, in fact, is their relative who is living abroad, does not have an Ohrid ID, but has initiated a procedure for obtaining a Macedonia passport!
The apartment building on “Goce Delcev” Street No. 369, in the neighborhood of Daljan in Ohrid, has only one entrance, and there is no such address – “Goce Delcev” No. 369/2. With additional checking, CIVIL’s observer concluded that there is no possibility for there to be any confusion or accidental mistake, because the building next to it on the left side is registered on another street with a visibly marked number 12, while the building behind this one is Number 371.
The tenants in building 369, with whom CIVIL’s observers spoke to, confirmed that the person with the initials O.P does not live in their building, in which there is also no second entrance, nor apartment 40 in it, though one said that recently a person, who he assumes was a court messenger, had been asking for the mentioned person O.P in their building, allegedly, to hand him an invitation.
At the same address, in apartment 13, a person with the initials A.M is registered in the Voters Register. The tenant from apartment 13, D.N, who has been living on the same address since 1979 said that A.M is a close relative of hers, who is born and is living in a neighboring country.
According to the person CIVIL spoke with, this relative does not have a Macedonian ID, comes to visit them once in three years, and during these visits gives their address as a temporary place of stay. Her relatives have supposedly initiated a procedure for her to recieve a passport several years ago.
As illustration to the chaos in the supposedly revised Voters Register is the fact that aside from the “phantoms” A.M and O.P, for which it is stated that they vote at the polling station 1309/1, there are also two more citizens P.P and R.D in building 369 on “Goce Delcev” Street who are listed as living in a non-existing building entrance. On the other hand, the person with the initials T.P according to the Voters Register lives in entrance 12, and even though according to the list, 60 voters in the building with one entrance live in apartments 1-20, while the “phantom” O.P lives in apartment 40.
Sinisa Stankovic
This post is also available in: AlbanianMacedonian