The CEC Secretariat's harsh response: We are committed to law, not to the whims of others

Through a media communique, the CEC Secretariat says this organ is obliged to respect CEC decisions and not interpret them.

Their full response:

In recent days we are witnessing a series of public verbal attacks by political subjects certified for elections, towards the Secretariat of the Central Election Commission.

The assessment and public assessment of our work, which is being done by certain acts and formations in public opinion, is unfairly tarnishing the CEC Secretariat. Such a form of tarnishing and enshrining individual names and connecting them with specific processes that are the legal responsibility of the professional staff of the CEC Secretariat has taken on the form of undeserved public pressure for the Secretariat's professional staff.

The inability to make necessary decisions pertaining to the electoral process by organs that are competent for such a thing - and in the absence of such a decision-making, as well as failure to push in a hard, non-procrupulous, and with great pressure on decision-making and proceeding at the executive level - would not have to provide reason for assaulting the professional-techn body, such as the Secret Secretary of the CEC, who is obliged to implement the decisions of the CEC, the law of competent bodies and other non-technical and non-escidentation decisions.

So the secretariat is obliged to act on the law, and not according to the whims and agendas of an acillator, which has the blistering and lynching power in public opin, no matter what role the function currently has and whatever interest it is currently guided and protected.

For each of these subjects, and for each dimension of our professional work, there are channels through which everyone's responsibilities can be addressed.

The path of public verbal attack and the labeling of the Secretariat's professional staff, presenting it as an arbitrary body that acts arbitraryly and that violates the will of citizens, is the way of those who are frustrated when an adequate decision making forum (the decisions would be binding on the Secretariat) cannot postpone certain agendas. But these naturally doomed roads fail because the Secretariat is a professional executive body with high integrity, which he has witnessed in practice for so long.

The position of the Secretariat, as a professional-technical body, is very clear: it does not interpret legal acts, decisions, regulations, etc., but only implements them literally and precisely.

Even when the rules force us to include fixed contingents of votes (of some subjects meets their outcome and others does not), even when a decision obliges us to include a certain category of votes (when some subjects do not agree with you in part), even if you are forced to recount the assigned boxes (when some of you are competing and others) etc. We do this based on law. We have always followed and followed the trajectory of professionalism, law and other regulation that imposes us and we never waver from the pressure of agendas, whatever they may be, or from the present moment's meski interest that the owners of the election process, depending on the current position, may have.

A pursuit of such a professionally-based legal and trajectory has enabled assessments for managing the election process by domestic and external actors, from 2013 onward, to mark the positive synific trend in management from the process into the process, despite the difficulties we have faced, such as the political, ethnic and other context.

A public attack on a professional body that only applies the law, regulations and decisions of competent bodies and does not subject to the whims and interests of any formal and informal group, except that it can jeopardise the personal safety of officials who are part of it, poisons public opinion and questions the credibility of the election process, which, as it was said, has always received positive assessments in its management since 2013, whether in local reports or international ones.

The disappointments that the parties may have with the election process, with one contingent of votes or another, with a procedure implemented in this or that way, with any dimension of management, or any eventual injustice that they consider to be being done in the process, the law has preceded instances in which the parties can address its demands and frustrations. The decisions of decision-making institutions, whether administrative or judicial, are binding on total implementation.

While democracy in a way is also the extent of procedures to protect freedom and rights, then political formations, which race for power, must follow and respect procedures precisely to protect our professional freedom. That way they also realise their rights. Crossing procedures and following “short track” of public verbal attacks does not protect our freedom nor ensure the realisation of alleged rights. Furthermore, it was a part of our immatureness as a society in accepting democracy as a way of political action and social engagement.

Knowing that our professional and law enforcement course will be able to face even in the future as a subject with another subject, whether involved in the election process or not, we assure the public opinion that the Secretariat will continue professionally to carry out its duties for which law, regulations and decisions are imposed, and will continue to keep equaidance from each party involved in the election process. This is the only way that guarantees electoral process of integrity, which we are committed to and simultaneously serve the interests of our entire society.