Chocolate: President No Constitutional Authority for Postponing Elections

Eugen Cakoli from the Kosovo Democratic Institute said that today the president does not have constitutional authority to decide to postpone local elections due to the increasing number of people infected with COVID-19.

Chocolate in a Facebook post writes that postponing the elections represents violating international conventions and the Code of Good Practice in Election Affairs.

Read full Facebook post:

Since the possibility of delaying local elections is now seriously under way, let's recall some arguments brought forward a year ago:

-The president has no constitutional authority to decide whether to postpone municipal elections due to increased numbers of people infected with COVID-19;

Pressing elections deprives citizens of their constitutional right, according to Article 45, of choosing or selecting one of the candidates certified by the CEC;

Pressing elections prevents democracy from materialising its function through participation of municipal citizens in

leading to choice through voting of their representative in the respective municipality;

Postponing elections represents violations of international conventions and the Code of Good Practice in Election Affairs. The postponement, without constitutional and legal support, also violates the rights guaranteed under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 KEDNJ;

These arguments (and others) against the postponement of the elections have been put forward to the Constitutional Court (Constant Ko98/20) by the LVV parliamentary group, when President Thaci had postponed the extraordinary vote for Podujevo chairman.