Democracy in Action: Elections Calm with Some Irregularities

Printer-friendly versionSend by email

The NGO coalition Democracy in Action, which monitored the November 3 Local Elections in Kosovo, qualified Sunday’s elections as calm and democratic. The coalition did note some irregularities that characterised the election process, including presence of unauthorised persons at the polling stations, family and proxy voting, and violations of voting procedure such as persons that photographed their ballots.

Democracy in Action representatives noted a number of irregularities in Sunday's Local Elections in Kosovo 

Driton Selmanaj from Democracy in Action said that the election process in northern Kosovo was cause of concern, noting that citizens there could not vote freely, while authorities failed to provide the security to would ensure a free and fair process.
 
“Democracy in Action calls on CEC and the OSCE to as soon as possible make transparent the events in northern Mitrovicë/Mitrovica and in other three municipalities Leposavić/Leposaviq, Zvecan/Zveçan, and Zubin Potok, where the voting ended before time, and it is unclear what happened with the ballot boxes and if they were under supervision of the elections administrators”, Selmanaj said.
 
Democracy in Action greatly appreciated civil maturity of Kosovo citizens for a satisfactory turnout in elections.
 
In the meantime, Kosovo Office of State Prosecution reported that during Sunday’s local elections, out of 35 detained persons, eight were officials, three commissioners, two school managers and three observers.
 
Chief Prosecutor Ismet Kabashi said that cooperation that this institution had with Kosovo Police and civil society will also continue on run-off elections day.
 
Key international organizations condemned violent incidents that happened in northern Kosovo on Sunday, where masked men stormed a polling centre, throwing canisters of teargas and stealing or destroying ballot boxes.