CEC: Over 19m euros for 2025 parliamentary and local elections

The budget planned by the Central Election Commission for organising elections for the Kosovo Assembly, which was held on February 9th 2025, is worth 8.7m Euro, of which more than 3.2 million euros were planned for the organisational process conducted during the months of 2024 and about 5.5 million euros for the rest of the election process during the first months of 2025. According to reports, the amount spent is around 7.9m euros. That for RTV21 was announced by CEC spokesman Valmir Elezi.

Elesi further said the budget, planned for the organisation of local elections for the mayors of the municipalities and for Communist countries, which are held on October 12th 2025, is worth more than 10.5m euros.

This budgetary planning, according to him, includes the organisation of the second round of elections for mayors. At the conclusion of this process and the conclusion of all procedures, we will have a final report and we will have precise data on how much of the planned means are spent. According to experience from past election processes, usually the final cost is lower than planned.

)The new General Election Law has expanded the responsibilities of the CEC in organising the election process, and this is reflected in the planned cost. The 38 Municipal Counting Centres, which are mostly located in sports gyms, have been functional in the elections for Parliament and in local elections. The functioning of these QKNs is an additional cost because the ongoing process should be fully transparent, and in this direction the security of cameras, monitors, computers, scanners and other surveillance devices are needed. Of course, other issues have influenced the planning of the overall cost of election processes. • Overall, major budget spending is not only for equipment purchase and similar, but most of the means are spent to pay off election troops and the other staff engaged during the entire election process is said to be in response.

It becomes known that the Central Election Commission has no budgetary means planned for a new election process, which is not planned. Therefore, if there will be elections, the CEC will in time prepare the budgetary demand which will be forwarded to the Government of Kosovo for approval. The CEC has done so in other cases when we have had early elections or in a non-election year.

Regarding discussions on new elections for the Kosovo Assembly, The CEC has indicated the position that the Central Election Commission remains committed to fulfilling the constitutional mandate, at any time when an election process is officially announced. Currently, the CEC is engaged in completing the process of the October 12th local elections and holding preparations for the second round of the mayoral elections to be held on November 9th.