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12 11 2009 Life in Kosovo discussed the upcoming local elections in Kosovo.
The main questions were: Is everything ready for election day? Did the Central Election Committee finish organising the process? What have political parties been complaining about during the campaign? What penalties did the Election Committee for Appeals and Complaints give for those who did respect the law? What are the main concerns of Kosovo’s civil society?
To discuss these issues and others surrounding Kosovo’s local elections, Muhamet Hajrullahu’s guests in the studio were:
Nesrin Lushta, head of the Central Election Committee (CEC)
Tahir Rrecaj, director of the Election Committee for Appeals and Complaints (ECAC)
Ismet Kryeziu, representative of ‘Democracy in Action’, a civil society coalition
Albulena Sadiku, Initiative for Progress (INPO), an NGO
Hajrullahu began the debate by asking Nesrin Lushta whether the Central Election Committee (CEC) was ready for election day. Lushta replied positively, adding that the CEC had been organising the process since the president had determined the date of the elections.
She went on to describe the organisational stages: beginning with the creation of local committees, then updating voter lists, producing ballots and organising the postal voting process, and finally accrediting election observers.
Albulena Sadiku said that, despite the fact that during the campaign there have been many appeals to the Election Committee for Appeals and Complaints (ECAC), she hoped that the election process would remain under control and that everything would proceed properly.
Adding to Lushta’s statement that the Public Information Campaign for the voting process had been late, Sadiku said that the CEC should not be criticised too harshly because people with interest in the process were aware of the sources from which information could be gathered.
Hajrullahu then asked Tahir Rrecaj, the ECAC’s director, if his organisation had had many problems over the campaign period. Rrecaj explained that a total of 65 appeals from political parties had been received to date, and that the ECAC would issue fines for those who had not respected campaign rules.
Furthermore, Rrecaj added that the ECAC had only started work recently, behind schedule, since they had been allocated an insufficient budget and had lacked an office and technical equipment.
However, he claimed that the Committee had managed to respond to all appeals and complaints as soon as they were able. In response to a question about whom had been fined and by how much, Rrecaj explained that some 41 of the 65 complaints received had been dealt with, leaving 24 still under consideration.
He reported that the PDK, AAK, LDD, LSD had all received fines for placing posters over those of other parties and for erecting billboards in unauthorised locations.
Thus, he said, the ECAC cannot fine offenders by large amounts, since any complaint about misusing public equipments and funds would require the public prosecutor and the law judges to deal with the cases, rather than the ECAC.
Ismet Kryeziu from ‘Democracy in Action’ was asked about the number of observers planned for election day, since Lushta claimed that 21,000 – including a number of party members – had been accredited by the CEC. Kryeziu stated that some 2,400 observers from ‘Democracy in Action’ would be in place.
Hajrullahu then posed a question about whether the process could take place fairly since the major political parties would have twice as many observers as there would be independent ones.
Kryeziu’s response was that such numbers will not necessarily be a problem, since the political parties would “probably have divided their observers into shifts”, so monitoring should, in his opinion, be sufficiently balanced.
In general, the participants agreed that the electoral process will likely be conducted in a fair and democratic way, since people have the right to vote in a democratic way.
Also, even though the budgets for the CEC and ECAC were determined late, the participants agreed that they have done a good job, since have been able to field and process many complaints and appeals.
Lushta went on to say that ballots were in Kosovo ready to be delivered to voting stations on election day.
Sadiku asked Lushta whether the rumours that some parties had printed ballots in Turkey and were planning to use them in the election were true.
Lushta replied that the ballots were printed in Slovenia and have been under strict supervision in order to ensure their readiness for election day. Thus, she concluded, there is no need for rumours.
Life in Kosovo is a co-production between Kosovo Public Television, RTK and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. It is broadcast every Thursday, starting at 20:20.
At the beginning of 2010 BIRN network published Digging Deeper - A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans, written in cooperation with Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia University, New York.
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