Election reform, CEC, sees it necessary, whether it will happen in 2020

It was President Hashim Thaci, who had started meetings with political parties for electoral reform during 2016, but this initiative was put on hold.

The lack of an election reform, according to experts, will bring back unclear situations of the electoral system.

They say irregularities that conveyed the latest election process in Kosovo showed the necessity and need to implement electoral reform.

The Central Election Commission has been praised for good election organisation, but the extension of this process with the recounting of deployments, most of which after the election panel's decisions on Anxiety and Parastre, has sparked widespread reactions and frustration.

In the institution dealing with election organisation, in the CEC for Online Economy, electoral reform finds it necessary, but as the institution's spokesman, Valmir Elezi does not know whether election reform will begin this year, since it does not depend on them.

“The Central Election Commission cannot give an answer if there will be electoral reform this year, as this does not depend on the CEC. What we can say is that the Central Election Commission finds electoral reform necessary, which means improving the legal base for organising elections”.

“Of course, the Central Election Commission, which is primarily tasked with implementing the Law on General Elections and the Law on Local Elections, is ready to make its professional contribution that would serve future election processes”.

According to Elez, the CEC is ready to provide its options for the technical aspects of the election process, which should be improved.

The “at the time when we will have electoral reform the CEC will present its perspectives and options regarding the technical aspects of the election process, which we believe must be improved. The CEC organises elections with the law on general elections and the law on local elections adopted in 2008, and during this time more than a decade of CEC has faced many challenges in various election processes”.

For a reminder, by the time the electoral reform process had begun, the CEC had drafted several recommendations for changing the law and the same were forwarded to the relevant commission. A number of other election processes have been organized since then, so we can also update those recommendations”.

Former head of the CEC Secretariat Mazum Baraliu in a proposal for Online Economy said electoral reform should be the government's upcoming priority, but not to put aside the opposition.

“Set up the first priorities should be an agreement with the future government because without agreeing with the opposition there can be nothing literal and acceptable, and start immediately to become electoral reform and work on the electoral code because Kosovo needs an electoral code that would include the general election laws, the law on local elections, the law on financing of political subjects and election regulations that are numerous and those are also a heavy burden because sometimes it is interpreted in different and contradictory ways, and it would have to be put on an electoral code as if they were in an intensive election after 21 months.

There's a lot of things that need to be subjected to electoral reform. All the legislation mentioned above must be rewritten because the law on general elections has also been proven in the last elections is dysfunctional and potentially harmful, Baraliu told Online Economy.

Baraliu said the election lists must be cleared and the vote on bail changed.

“Then there are electoral areas that are electoral thresholds, and such proportional system with open lists or system with closed lists and should be discussed or public analysis and debate by the country's society and institutions in order to amend conditional voting, cleaning the list a mechanism must find an instrument to clear lists from persons who do not have a vote <x>

According to him, electoral reform would have to happen many years ago because a legal heritage has been made and without numerous tests.

The electoral reform has been necessary for many years because we have a legal heritage of UNMIK legislation that has been taken without many tests requiring the country's circumstances, and we have an incomplete legislation that is incompatible and harmful”.

The “has been made earlier by a commission to make electoral reform, but was not accepted in proposals that were well formulated by local and international CEC experts and provided their all-help to make electoral reform, but were not embraced by political parties”, he says.