Who ultimately damaged Kosovo's election process

Early parliamentary elections held on 6 October, according to reports by local and international observers passed smoothly and were in line with democratic standards.

The pre-election campaign has also been praised by monitoring organisations that it developed without problems and incidents that would undermine the process.

But it was the process of counting votes and multiple manipulations by political party commissionors, which are estimated to be damaging the entire election process. According to Central Election Commission officials, the issue is repeating itself whenever elections are being held.

Until the outcome of the elections for political parties and coalitions can no longer be changed, what observers have noted is the tendency of manipulations within political parties, which manifests itself through manipulation by candidates' votes for MPs.

Central Election Commission Chairman Valdete Daka has been forced to invite the investigative Police and Prosecutors to stay at the Counting and Results Centre to investigate some irregularities reported by observers, as well as to see if there are manipulations with citizens' votes from political party commissioners.

Daka has stressed that during the vote count at several polling stations, manipulations of various types have been made, and for that reason, it has had to be done and the recount of several boxes in several locations must be made.

“As far as the commissionors are concerned, I can even now appeal to the police and the Prosecutors who can stay freely at the Counting and Results Centre and there they can see and get evidence because in those locations (where there were recounts) manipulations of various types”, Daka said.

From Thursday, state prosecutors and Kosovo police have gone within the targets of the Centre for Counting and Results.

“The State Prosecutor announces to the public that in the Centre for Counting and Resolution (QNR), State Prosecutor and investigators from Kosovo Police are already present, who will jointly convey and verify claims issued by the CEC”, it is said in a communiqué by the Prosecutor.

Members of the Central Election Commission have said that delays in completing the entire election process are being made, not because of the CEC, but because of problems the political parties have made.

No political subject has been immune to the manipulations of commissionors in the dark”, Ilir Gashi, a member of the CEC from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, has declared.

Naim Rashit, director of the Balkan Policy Group in Kosovo, tells Radio Free Europe that political parties or commissionors since they are now unable to manipulate citizens, are manipulating the results.

“The implementation of the results from the deployments on the overall table is in trouble, and there have been some distortions that have been confirmed itself by the head of the Central Election Commission that have been made by many parties. Several claims have also been testified to, but also several different incidents that were promoted, but also the continued opening of boxes by votes. This process of large credibility was hurt, hurt by political parties themselves”, Rashi said.

He said the election process was damaged by political parties and their candidates for MPs who are in the race to rank as high on the lists and thus secure seats in the Assembly.

According to him, the electoral system and the manner of voting candidates for MPs should be changed urgently.

“This shows that the voting process and voting should be simplified in future processes. The way of voting should be simplified. We cannot vote for five candidates, because that is where manipulation” is taking place, Rashi said.

Albert Krasniqi, connoisseur of political developments in Kosovo, has stated that one of the worst polling points in Kosovo remain the need to recount the ballot boxes, which is largely the result of commissionors' efforts to manipulate with candidates' votes.

The recounting trend is on the rise from the 2014 elections, with 19.59% reaching 33.14% in the last elections, which could still increase after the results were announced. To boost confidence in the elections, electoral reform must take into consideration that votes of political subjects be counted at the polls (to get results faster), while candidates' votes are counted in the QNR to avoid manipulation”, Krasniqi wrote on his Facebook profile.

The conclusion of the process of extraordinary elections in Kosovo, meaning announcing its final outcome and certificate, according to Central Election Commission officials, could last approximately two more weeks.

Meanwhile, according to the Kosovo Democratic Institute, which under the coalition of non-governmental organisations Democracy in Action, has been involved in monitoring the whole process, until the announcement of the final outcome could last another month.

Early parliamentary elections in Kosovo are held on 6 October. According to preliminary results from the count of fair votes, Vetevendosje Movement has won the most votes, followed by the Democratic League of Kosovo. /Rel/