Without meeting the conditions for free, fair and democratic elections, and without moving the date, civil society activists will have no choice but to call for a boycott of the elections scheduled for April 24 and to organize mass protests against the regime, which continues to trample on democracy, human rights and rule of law in the country.
This is the second letter from 75 non-governmental and civil society organizations to the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, and other international actors active in resolving the political crisis here.
The civil sector believes that undemocratic processes are occurring in the state including, disrespect for human rights and the rule of law, and instead of having constructive political dialogue between the government and the opposition, only one sided decision are being made.
Biljana Bejkova from “NGO Infocenter” says the obstruction of the work of the Special Public Prosecutor prevents an efficient investigation of indications of crime established in the Priebe report.
“Given that the basic reform recommendations are not implemented and persons engaged in election fraud are not brought to justice, we are of the standing that the unilateral, frivolous and unconstitutional decision of the Parliament of Republic of Macedonia to schedule the elections for 24th April 2016, taken without participation of the large part of the opposition, is scandalous. Equally scandalous is the failure on the part of the European Commission to condemn such unilateral decisions (which could be understood as support for the political frivolousness). It is scandalous to insist on a date for the elections, put the Urgent Reform Priorities in second place and ignore the appeal of the vast number of civil society organizations that are demanding implementation of reforms for fair and free elections.” Said Bejkova.
NGOs sent this letter to the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, Vice President of the European Commission and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, the EU Delegation in Macedonia, Members of the European Parliament, the Head of the Senior Expert Group – Reinhard Priebe, the OSCE Mission to Skopje, to all the Embassies of all EU member states that have offices in Macedonia and the US Embassy.
