DnV ready to monitor tomorrow's elections

The coalition of NGOs, “Democracy in Action”, has made all preparations for better monitoring the election process tomorrow, where in 19 municipalities will be held the second round of local elections for mayor.

Artan Murati from “Democracy in Action” said they appeal to political subjects and other institutions involved in managing elections tomorrow, to show high caution to ensure free, calm and democratic elections.

“DnV is already ready to run election monitoring for tomorrow. We will have observers in all places where the vote will take place and will be somewhere around 1800 short-term observers, who will be engaged in all polling seats tomorrow. Moreover, we will also have long-term observers and mobile teams, who will constantly monitor the entire process tomorrow. The co-ordination centre will still be in Pristina”, Murati said.

Murati has also presented the report on monitoring the five-day campaign for the run-off race, where he said the campaign has developed smoothly and without incident.

“over this five-day period of the election campaign DnV's long-term observers have conveyed a total of 166 activities of political subjects. It is noteworthy that the campaign has even begun before the official campaign, defined by the CEC. Observers have noted that there were electoral processes actually before the official campaign began. As for the participation of citizens in gatherings, subjects have largely held gatherings of up to 100 participants, and this time we have seen trends in which election campaign priorities were given before meetings with interest groups. This time again, we have noted that there was public resource use. With exactly, public resource use has been observed in a total of 18 cases, whether the use of official cars or the participation of civil servants in campaigns or gatherings of political subjects”, he stressed.

Murati added that this time again the trend of children's involvement in political subjects' activities in the electoral campaign has continued. He said they have encountered 28 percent of monitored activities, including children. Translations into numbers, according to him, the number of children participants in the campaign was 444.

Similarly, 15 activities of political subjects have been involved among disabled people. Until, concern said the small number remains of women speakers' participation and running for the first of the municipality, since there are only two.

Meanwhile, the media said they were present at 45 percent of all election activities monitored by DnV observers and had sufficient freedom.