Voters Register is not revised, conditions for free elections are not being created

PUBLIC STATEMENT, 27/4/2016 | CIVIL – Center for Freedom has clearly and unambiguously reiterated its assessments on the process within which a revision of the Voters Register is being conducted.

The manner and the quality with which this process is being carried out, the suspicions raised due to the questionable work of the State Election Commission, and the actions of the political parties, indicate that citizens cannot trust the Voters Register, as it is now.  A general conclusion is that, even if the Voters Register was entirely revised, which nevertheless did not happen, there would still be a lack of trust and a lack of credibility in the SEC, and the entire process.

Primarily, the field checks regarding the Voters Register were not conducted in a manner that can be assessed as entirely regular, something on which we informed the public previously on several occasions.

The administrative check that was supposed to include more than 70,000 people, exposed the fact that over 18,000 people had never applied for issuance of personal documents, yet their names show up in the Voters Register.

We have until now published findings on two cases, and we have many more by now (reports arrive every hour), from which we find out that the Voters Register still contains names of persons, deceased during the last year and even before.

For years, during previous election processes, there were persons who were marked with an asterisk, meaning they are voting abroad, and now their names figure in the Voters Register, as if they are voting in the country. This means, someone has made a decision to remove the asterisk, which leaves room for doubts that someone here could abuse their vote.

And all of this is not enough. The SEC has simply decided to impose this Voters Register as revised. Moreover, voting in the SEC is in the style of 6:0, while it is composed of nine members. Who can still trust the legitimacy and credibility of the State Election Commission and the Voters Register? And the international community, which the state itself has invited to help, presented similar assessments to the ones of CIVIL, but none of this was enough.

Apart from the devastating situation of the Voters Register, CIVIL has noted a huge number of cases of intimidation and pressure, political corruption, discrimination based on political affiliation, harassments, full party control of the institutions and unchanged situation in the media, which are largely under government control.

Finally, once more, we emphasize the conclusion that conditions for holding free election in Republic of Macedonia are not created, nor are they being created. According to what has been done until now, free elections on June 5 are just not possible.