Today, meetings continued at the Club of Deputies between working groups of the various Macedonian political parties who have signed up to the Przhino Agreement. On today’s agenda, electoral law, overseas voting, and addressing any contamination of the electoral list.
According to information from the working groups, these issues are not expected to have easy negotiations however these matters have to be settled by the end of this month
As we reported before, there has been little progress over the active registration of voters, and the enforcement of mandatory inclusion of all citizens to be on the electoral roll. Our sources say that VMRO-DPMNE have agreed on active voter registration but have yet to come to a conclusion on whether it will be mandatory or not. The latest information from the working groups is that attitudes maybe coming to an agreement, like DPA (Democratic Party of Albanians) previously proposed a combination of rules for registration. Specifically, their proposal stated that the way voters were registered should be combined. This would mean according to our sources, the whole process should take four months, two months to go out in the field and start making an inventory of adult citizens from door to door, and two months to be left for compulsory registration, which is when the Government enforce legal requirements for mandatory inclusion of all citizens to be registered and put on the electoral roll.
It is well known that the main political parties agreed on the election of the members of SEC (State Election Commission) and accepted the SDSM proposal, under which they will be elected by the formula three + three + three or three members to be proposed by the government, three from the opposition, and then three experts which will be elected by a two-thirds majority of the Parliament.
Political parties are still far from agreeing on the voting of the diaspora.
Positions concerning the Macedonian diaspora remain entrenched, not budging at all, with all parties standing firm. VMRO-DPMNE believes that the current principle of diaspora voting in three constituencies should remain the way it is, while SDSM is for the diaspora to vote, and be able to vote like all citizens who live in Macedonia.
