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OSCE/ODIHR: The elections were democratic and we didn’t notice any act of violence

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The second round of mayoral elections were competitive and respect for fundamental freedoms contributed towards conduct of democratic elections, the observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) concluded in a preliminary statement released today.

“The legal framework forms a sound basis for the conduct of democratic elections. While most provisions of the Electoral Code apply for the second round, the Code does not clearly regulate certain aspects,” Ambassador Glover said, including that the law does not provide for the updating of voter lists between the rounds, effectively disenfranchising voters who turned 18 years old in this period.

Glover said that SEC has increased the transparency of its work between the two rounds, it did not adequately plan for additional training for election commissions and voter education it did not improve the vote count. She has noticed that SEC has not met the 48-hour legal deadline for discussions regarding lodged complaints and during the decision-making process at least one case of political siding.

When asked how she would comment the accusations of VMRO-DPMNE’s party leader, Nikola Gruevski, about election irregularities and outbreaks of violence, Glover said that if the party thinks there was violence it should report it to the authorized institutions and the police and if the election process has been violated that should be reported to the appropriate institutions which are obliged to regulate and implement the elections.

-Those are accusations, but our short-term and long-term observers and us, we didn’t notice any violence. We noticed efforts for bribery, for photographing ballots, family voting, and the police is already reacting to that, but we have no evidence of violence. We don’t work according to accusations, but with evidence. Of the photographs that we have found ourselves which means these were not sent to us and it cannot be determined exactly what is happening. We are here as observers, and not as election police. We cannot interfere in the election process – said Glover, including that the final report about the elections in Macedonia will be published in 2 months.

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