Jail sentences required for election process offenders

According to the prosecution so far, 14 charges have been filed against 18 people in all areas of Kosovo.

Civil society representatives demand that those who have damaged the election process be sentenced to prison.

The establishment of charges by the prosecution has confirmed Kp spokesman Ekrem Lutfiu.

Lutpu tells of separate cases and what accused persons are suspected of.

According to him, the prosecution in Gjilan has filed three counts against five people for criminal work, the signing of free voter definition, as well as an indictment against one person for criminal work HINA for preventing the exercise of the right to vote. While two charges against 2 persons for criminal work have been filed in Prizren, the prosecution of the voter's secrecy has been granted.

The indictment has also been filed in Ferizaj against one person for criminal work “Consumption of the free definition of voters.

There was mostly work for the Prosecutor in Gjakova. Thus, 7 charges against 7 persons for criminal work have been filed against “Consumption of voting secrecy”.

In Mitrovica, an indictment has been filed against three persons for criminal acts “Pestigation of the voting process” and “Easy bodily access“. And in Pec the prosecution has filed an indictment against two people because of the criminal offence of the right to vote.

Lutfiu says the prosecution is also investigating envelopes coming from Serbia that were reportedly contaminated.

Some of the alleged envelopes have been taken as material evidence to be sent for more detailed screening of”, the Prosecutor says.

Representatives from civil society demand that those who commit violations during the election process receive maximum penalties from justice.

Betim Musliu from the Kosovo Institute for Justice tells Kosovo Press that the policy of inadequate sentences has influenced commissioners to continue to manipulate by vote even in the 6 October elections.

According to him so far, no one has been convicted who have urged commissioners to do criminal acts during the elections, whether political party leaders or even sponsors of their election campaigns.

“We demand that the state prosecutor make an investigation of organised crime in elections that goes on, I believe, to political party leaders or those that keep political party leaders who are donors, funders and their campaigns. And the judges also don't pronounce parole sentences and fine sentences which do not achieve the purpose of what is being pronounced, but to have effective prison sentences so that once and for all it can be understood that in democracy the greatest definition of whether there is democracy or there is no”, Musliu says.

Even KDI legal adviser Florent Spahija says all those who do vote manipulations should be punished with maximum penalties.

The court's “Determination must be the maximum sentence, so it's not a mild punishment for them since the punishment they make to the state is too big. So from those stolen elections or from elections whose candidates' names are manipulated, we have people who enter or enter the government without merit, and people who didn't vote, but who have the people put their candidates in place... it had to be a prosecutor's work if they wanted to deal with it or why they've become vote-rigging, who has paid them, or who has told them to do them, or who they've cooperated with. So the prosecution was supposed to look for this truth and put it before the court that was tried by those people, in this case are political subjects who seek vote manipulation or appointed candidates who have sought vote manipulation and did not fail to punish them as well”, Spahija says.

Kosovo on every side of elections faces vote theft by commissioners coming from political subjects in the race.

In the early parliamentary elections of 2017, the State Prosecutor had filed a total of 23 criminal charges of abuse in elections involving 27 people.