Election Year and Millions Spended

For organising these elections, the Government of Kosovo is obliged to share significant financial means from the state budget, which many times are said to have been a huge burden to the budget.

For early parliamentary elections on June 11th, about 5m euros were earmarked from the state budget, but since these elections had not been planned, part of the means -- around 2m euros -- were borrowed from the municipal election budget.

Now in the budget for municipal elections, which will be held on October 22nd, there are minus 2m euros.

Outgoing Finance Minister Agim Krasniqi told Radio Free Europe that, in a financial sense, the process of local elections could be organised and that these means, which are currently not in the Central Election Commission fund, will be anchored.

“The CEC has over 3m euros in budget for local elections, enabling preparations for elections and there is no problem for preparations to begin. Much of the costs for local elections are spent at the time when local elections will be held, while the rest, commission fees and other staff, take place after local elections are completed. In October or even earlier, the government could make the decision to allocate some funds from the reserve fund”, Krasniqi stresses.

He made it known that even if it could not soon become the institution of new institutions, the Parliament and the Government, even the outgoing government can make a decision to separate these tools.

The final cost of the June 11th early elections is still unknown, Central Election Commission spokesman Valmir Elezi tells Radio Free Europe.

“For early elections have been planned around 5m euros, a detailed report on the exact cost of these elections is being prepared. We're awaiting this report. But since these elections have not been scheduled to be held this year, part of the means are taken from the municipal election budget, which will be compensated for”, Elesi says.

Central Election Commission in Kosovo is now preparing fair elections for local self-government bodies, which will be held in Kosovo's 38 municipalities.

A total of 6.1m euros have been earmarked for these elections by the 2017 budget law.

But how much such elections will have the final cost, according to Elez is expected to be seen after the entire process is completed.

The process of local elections depends on how many municipalities we will have the second round, that is, the runoff, which is in advance by law. It is noteworthy that in the 2013 local elections, the second rounds in 25 municipalities out of 38 are totaling”, Elez points out.

Although Kosovo's elections for the Parliament are held every four years, more frequent elections have been made in Kosovo, as almost neither legislature in the country has managed to complete the four-year constitutional mandate.

The average of a governing mandate in Kosovo has failed to be more than two and a half years.

Arton Demhay, from the Organisation for Democracy, Anti-Corruption and Dinjitie “Arise”, tells Radio Free Europe that organising early elections is considered to have caused great burden to the state budget.

“In Kosovo are consistently considered the elections as a solution to problems, but in fact they have never turned out to be the solution to problems, and therefore we need to learn and not move towards extraordinary elections, as opportunities to solve political problems, as this has shown that it is not the solution to the problem, but has only spent millions of euros from the Kosovo budget”, he points out.

In addition to these tools set aside for both parliamentary and local elections, major spending during election campaigns is made by political parties, which, according to Demhaja, totals more than 15m euros for a party election.

By contrast, by year, political parties, which are represented in the Kosovo Assembly from the Kosovo budget, are earmarked by more than 4m euros.