Parties fine around 360 thousand euros for election violations

Mul Descu, head of the Electoral Panel Secretariat for Ances and Parashtes, tells Radio Free Europe that by election day, 13 political subjects have been fined on October 6th.

“So far, in terms of complaints about the first phase of the official election campaign, about the election campaign, about electoral silence, and on election day, the PZAP has submitted or accepted a total of 269 complaints. While the total amount of fines pronounced against all political subjects, for all complaints I highlighted above, except for election day, which have yet to be reviewed the complaints they have reached and handed over yesterday at PZAP, it is 359 thousand and 550 euros. These fines include fines of 13 political subjects”, Descu said.

The parties that have been fined are: The Democratic League of Kosovo, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the Vetevendosje, the Serbian List, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo coalition and the Social Democrat Party, the Initiative coalition, the New Kosovo Alliance and the Party of Justice, the United Roma of Kosovo, the New Democratic Initiative of Kosovo, the Independent Liberal Party, the Egyptian Liberal Party, the Vacat, the Turkish Democratic Party of Kosovo and the Movement for Gora.

Descu has added that the reason for the fines, during the campaign, has been to place panovs in public spaces, to use children in the campaign, to pressure voters to vote on the assigned political subject, to exploit public position with the aim of profiting the vote, to use hate speech, to put propagand election materials on public streets.

“While, in terms of breaking the election silence, mainly have been: using social networks, existing propaganda materials in range of closer than 100 meters from where citizens voted, texting with SMS, calling via phones to vote for the subject or the designated candidate, calling for a Facebook vote, broadcasting the political public spot, using photos on social networks during electoral silence, and the remaining<1>, Descu stressed.

The European Union Mission's chairman in early elections, which were held on 6 October in Kosovo, Violet von Cremon-Taubadel, during a media conference in Pristina, has declared the 6 October elections have been well organised and transparent, while the voting process and the counting of votes has been positively assessed.

According to her, the election campaign was alive and competitive, enabling racers to campaign freely in most of Kosovo, except in the settlements of the Serb majority.

“The campaign environment on Kosovo's Serb-inhabited trains was marred by intimidation that targeted candidates and supporters who were not listed with the Serbian List”, Violet von Cremon-Taubadel has said.

Meanwhile, Eugen Cakoli from the Kosovo Democratic Institute, which is part of the network of nongovernmental organisations Democracy in Action, which has supervised the election process for early parliamentary elections on 6 October, tells Free Europe Radio, that in part of the activities of political subjects, during the campaign, there have been violations of the Law for Election or Election Order.

“Among the most frequent violations, for which we as Democracy in Action have also sent complaints to the Electoral Panel for Ances and Parastres, have been about placing panovs or propagandizing materials in illegal spaces. What has been noted in this campaign is the language of hatred, which has been widely used by political parties, especially the language of hatred on political grounds. Also, we have had cases of public resource use, more precisely, of official cars, in particular by political subjects, which have been in power at the central level and those at the local level of”, Cakoli said.

According to him, one of the cases of the use of hate but ethnic-based language has been from the Serbian List, which through a video clip has conveyed messages that have been interpreted as challenging to election constitutionality.

On election day, as Cakoli said, the process has been conducted in line with legal standards, but there have been some recorded cases of irregularities, some of which have been criminal nature and in some cases procedural violations by commissionors or by voters themselves.

Early parliamentary elections in Kosovo have been announced several weeks after Ramush Haradinaj resigned on 19 July from the position of Kosovo prime minister.