change font size

print version

copyright

Other languages:

Diaspora Voting Plan Gets Cool Response in Macedonia

16 11 2006  Few dispute ballots abroad are a good idea. The question is whether it will work.

By Predrag Petrovic in Skopje (Balkan Insight, 16 Nov 06)

Plans by Macedonia’s justice ministry to extend voting rights to citizens living abroad have divided the country, prompting claims that it may lead to manipulation and questions over whether embassies are up to the job.

While few deny the value of the idea, experts point out that after more than 15 years of independence, Macedonia has no records on how many Macedonian citizens live abroad.

Poor infrastructure in most Macedonian diplomatic missions in the world means this deficiency cannot be easily remedied. Setting up polling stations across the world would also be expensive and would stretch resources. Macedonia’s 32 embassies and consulates have to cover 58 countries.

Nonetheless, voting rights in the diaspora is one of the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR international monitoring mission that has monitored all elections in Macedonia, in order to make Macedonian election standards compatible with Europe.

One argument in favour of the change is the need to address the existence of a so-called “dark” pool of voters, that is, people who have moved away from Macedonia but are still on the electoral list.

Todor Petrov, of the government Agency for Emigrants, Matica na iselenicite, says the number of such phantom voters is huge - and has a real impact on the outcome of elections.

“There are about 300,000 names registered on the voting lists who are not de facto residents of the country,” he said.

In the July election, about 900,000 voters decided the composition of the new parliament, with the centre-right VMRO-DMPNE and its partners winning by around 300,000 votes.

The government says that by introducing voting rights abroad, they can abolish the practice of people being allowed to circle ballot slips on the behalf of others.

According to the plan, only citizens temporarily working or living abroad who still have a registered residence in the country will gain the right to vote in embassies and consular missions.

The right will apply only to parliamentary elections, and not to presidential or the local elections. Would-be voters will have to fill out applications, which will then be recorded. They will vote seven days before polling day in Macedonia. After voting, their ballots will be handed over to the foreign ministry within three days.

The president of the State Electoral Committee, Jovan Josifovski, said emigrants would vote for candidates in their constituencies, just as if they were voting at home.

However, experts and some politicians doubt that voting in the diaspora will be as simple as some officials suggest. They point out firstly that no one knows how many Macedonian citizens live abroad.

They also say that past practice in Croatia has shown how confusing it can be. There, poor record-keeping has meant many voters being able to ballot twice after their names appeared on lists inside Croatia and on lists abroad.

The Agency for Emigrants claims that from 1945 to 1990 about half a million Macedonians left the country and that in the last 16 years another 300,000 emigrated.

They believe collecting accurate figures is impossible without computerised border crossings recording who goes in and out.

Stevo Pendarovski, a former president of the State Electoral Committee, doubts this problem over the lack of records of emigrants can easily be overcome.

Professor Tanja Karakamiseva, an expert on elections at the Skopje University law faculty, also agrees that creating a more precise record is necessary.

Meanwhile, opposition parties claim the lack of precise records about emigrants may enable governments to manipulate votes in the diaspora.

Albanian representatives are especially critical of the proposal, though the changes would suit the very numerous Albanian diaspora and increase their voting strength.

The largest Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said it categorically opposed the plan.

Rafiz Aliti, the vice-president, said the reform was in no one’s interest without clearer records, “regardless of the fact that Albanian parties would win more seats if the diaspora voted”.
Aliti said he foresaw endless disputes over the validity of ballots cast abroad - depending on whether the country was a diaspora stronghold of ethnic Albanian or Macedonians.

“We’ll have a situation in which our [Albanian] votes in Switzerland are disputed, whereas we won’t believe those coming in from Australia,” he said.

Many ethnic Albanians live in Switzerland while Australia has long been a popular destination for ethnic Macedonians.

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party also came out against the proposal, saying that for now “there are no real conditions for citizens to fulfill their [voting] rights abroad”.

Zoran Sapuric, a party spokesperson, said the proposals had not made clear whether rights would only be given to citizens registered at addresses in Macedonia, or whether citizens without registered addresses would be included. “All this may cause a great confusion,” said Sapuric.

Josifovski did not deny that there may be irregularities but said it was up to the ministry of justice to make more effort to draw up “precise and correct lists”.

Another question is whether Macedonia’s humble diplomatic or consular missions even have the capacity to run such ambitious operations as elections.

Since independence in the early 1990s, Macedonia has scaled down foreign operations. The remaining modest diplomatic missions may not be up to the challenge or organising the voting of several thousand people in the space of one or two days. Some “embassies” are merely two-room apartments, accommodating the ambassador and a tiny staff.

Many Macedonian citizens abroad also live nowhere near the places where those missions operate.

“Citizens living in countries without diplomatic-consular missions will be in an unequal situation,”said the LDP’s Sapuric.

Aleksandar Gorgiev, of VMRO-National, another opposition party, said limiting voting to embassy premises was unacceptable, as it would mean emigrants having to travel huge distances.

“An emigrant in Vancouver who wants to vote would need to travel several thousand miles to get to the embassy in Toronto,” said Gorgiev.

His party supports voting rights abroad but wants to see a network of polling stations set up in each place where more than 7,000 Macedonians live.

Limiting voting to embassies has been blamed for the abysmal turnout of the Romanian diaspora. At the last elections in 2004, only 30,000 of 3 million Romanian emigrants voted, prompting demands that they should be allowed to vote on the internet.

In Macedonia, there may also be arguments over the cost of the next election due in 2010. The last parliamentary ballot cost about two million euro, but extending the right to the diaspora will push up the amount.

Under the law, election boards abroad must comprise foreign ministry employees who would have to fly in to the embassies concerned.

“That means an extra burden on the budget, financial means for travel, and per diem wages for those who travel,” admitted Josifovski.

Predrag Petrovic is a journalist with A1 TV. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication.