ELECTION REPORT #13: Black campaign on the political menu, Roma “public room”, CIVIL important information and announcements on the monitoring

Independent candidates with serious complaints regarding media representation, 10 “meals” on the election political “menu”, CIVIL with presentation of pre-election report on Friday, October 15, important announcements for observers and other important information in the 13th edition of Election Report

Live from CIVIL’s press studio, October 11, 2021, 12:40 pm

Happy October 11, National Uprising Day! Let’s hope we have a day in which the political parties, festively, will show a little more respect towards each other.

EXCERPT FROM THE ELECTION SCHEDULE

Two weeks have passed of the election campaign. We have six more days of campaigning until the elections.

Election silence begins on October 16 (Saturday) at midnight. The first round of the local elections will be held on Sunday, October 17. Persons in detention and serving prison sentences, ill and incapacitated persons and persons with COVID-19 or in self-isolation vote on October 16.

The deadline for registering of the ill and incapacitated to vote ends on October 9 (Saturday), and the deadline for persons with COVID-19 or in self-isolation ends October 11 at midnight.

CIVIL NEWS

PRE-ELECTION REPORT CIVIL will present the Report of the long-term election monitoring and the organization’s monitoring on October 15 (Friday), live, starting at 12.30 pm on the organization’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

TRAINING SEMINARS A large number of the anticipated observers of CIVIL had intensive weekend training during the weekend of October 9 and 10.

The remaining observers will have online training on Wednesday, at 5.00 pm, on the Zoom platform. CIVIL calls on all observers to be available and regularly check their emails for new materials and guidelines for the monitoring on October 17.

COOPERATION AND WORK ENGAGEMENT

CIVIL is open for cooperation and engagement of journalists and project assistants – until the end of December. A CV and motivation letter need to be sent to [email protected].

SUMMARIZING THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN

In the past two weeks, CIVIL’s monitoring teams have noted a generally peaceful campaign, though filled with many cases of black propaganda, disinformation and hate speech of which not even party leaders and senior party officials of certain parties, current and former MPs, refrained from it.

Again, like in the time of the regime when the former Prime Minister threatened that he would kick “various hojteci’s and katica’s”, now too, certain politicians are threatening with violence and arrests. This, actually, is not something new in the public communication of certain political entities.

ELECTION POLITICAL MENU  

Apart from the regular activities of the political parties and independent candidates, the following meals can also be found in the election political menu:

1. Black campaign, disinformation and hate speech
2. Abuse of children in a political campaign
3. Abuse of official position for election purposes, with pressure over employees in an educational institution
4. Abuse of official premises for election purposes
5. Politicization of some civil society organizations
6. Violation of recommendations and protocols for protection against COVID-19
7. Refusing public debate
8. Case of discrimination in media representation
9. Violent incidents: destruction of advertising material and a fight in Gradsko, shooting in front of DUI election headquarters in Cair, a bomb explosion in the yard of a candidate on the councillors list in Shuto Orizari
10. Black propaganda, gender discrimination and gross violation of privacy in the case with a Facebook page supported by a Levica candidate.

“LIFE AND DEATH” ELECTION FIGHT  

From the very start, CIVIL concluded that the election campaign is exceptionally dynamic, with a fierce pace for all participants in the election race.

The election campaign includes all resources of political parties, staring from municipal party committees to leaders and senior officials of political parties.

It is also obvious that the local elections have again taken on the character as if a life and death fight is being led.

In CIVIL’s analyses, the conclusion is stressed that national topics dominate in the election process, even though it is a matter of local elections. leaders and senior officials of political parties dominate in the campaign, even though they are not candidates in the election race for the local government.

REMARKS OF INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES

Some independent candidates, in communication with CIVIL, have outlined numerous remarks about their position in the election process. Today we will cite just three of the many remarks referred so far.

1) Independent candidates in the local elections do not have space for marketing and debates in the media.

2) There are no possibilities for using billboards at top places in municipalities. Only the big political parties enjoy that privilege.

3) Independent candidates consider themselves to be marginalized in terms of the defining of the number that is circled on the ballot.

CIVIL has been noting these conditions for years and some of the recommendations that have been made so far to the institutions and political parties refer to the requests for more space and fair opportunities to be given to the smaller political parties and independent participants in the election processes.

ROMA “PUBLIC ROOM” ON FACEBOOK

CIVIL with great distress has followed the appearance of the so-called “Roma public room”.

On August 21, 2021, a fan page appeared on the social network Facebook that has over 1.600 followers, which posts compromising and explicit private photos and videos of girls.

The Facebook page has also posted a call for collecting explicit photos and videos of women and girls for their publication, and as it is indicated in the post – “public display of dishonest women”. Furthermore, the administrator of the page in several posts asks the followers: “Do you want to see the video without censorship on…”.

The same Facebook page also shares political content, that is, support for the candidate for mayor of Shuto Orizari, Tefik Mahmut from Levica, while there is a black campaign and hate speech for his opponents.

PUBLIC CONDEMNATION

CIVIL strongly condemns this atrocious act of abuse and violation of privacy, inciting hatred on gender basis as well as a black campaign and hate speech on political grounds by the mentioned Facebook page.

On Friday (08.10.2021), CIVIL reported the Facebook page to the Ministry of interior, Department for Cyber Crime and Digital Forensics and to the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office to urgently take measures, that is, to shut down this page and to find out the administrators of the page, and to accordingly sanction them.

Until the start of today’s edition of “Election Report” (12:40 pm), the Facebook page is still online.

FINGERPRINT DEVISES, GUARENTEES AND RESPONSIBILITY

On Saturday, October 9, the last delivery of the 1,300 fingerprint devices arrived at the SEC. The total number of the devices is 4,000, which on Election Day, October 17, will be allocated at 3,480 polling stations. The biometric voting equipment will be used for the first in these local elections.

The President of the SEC, on October 4 stated that the local elections will be well-organized, but that they cannot guarantee how the technical part will run with the use of the identification terminals since they are being applied for the first time and have had no pilot application.

There are no guarantees, but certainly are those who are responsible or should be.

Good luck to all of us.

Xhabir Deralla, in cooperation with CIVIL’s Monitoring Team
Camera: Igor Chadinoski
Realization: Arian Mehmeti

Translation: N. Cvetkovska