Andric Rakic: Parties could abuse the CEC in this election process as well

Milica Andric Rakic, Program Manager of the NGO New Social Initiative, stated that Albanian political parties in Kosovo could once again abuse the Central Election Commission (CEC) during the current election process by making decisions concerning the decertification of the Serb List or by banning media outlets reporting in the Serbian language from monitoring the electoral process.

“Specifically, through the same kinds of initiatives we saw during the previous two election cycles, when they refused to vote in favor of certifying Serb List’s candidates for participation in the elections. During the previous election cycle, we even saw the refusal to certify media outlets reporting in the Serbian language to participate in election monitoring. I fear that such things could happen again,” Andric Rakic told Kosovo Online.

Speaking about irregularities within the Central Election Commission during the previous election process, when several individuals ended up behind bars over vote theft allegations, Andric Rakic noted that intra-party vote theft between candidates had occurred in Kosovo before as well, but that this time the public had been sufficiently alarmed for the prosecution to react.

“Let us recall the election cycle when the husband of Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla was caught in the act, at a time when she was serving as minister. These things had been happening, everyone knew they were happening, but apparently not on the same scale as during the previous elections. It seems to me that the public was far more alarmed this time, which is probably why the prosecution reacted in such a manner. I believe this will now be significantly curbed, both by the political parties and, ultimately, by the individuals who participated in such activities. If there were previously no consequences for these actions, it is now becoming obvious that there can at least be problems in the sense of becoming part of an investigation. Therefore, I think that party representatives on polling boards will refuse to engage in such practices now,” she said.

Andric Rakic emphasized that such irregularities did not affect the overall distribution of votes among political parties, but rather involved the illegal redistribution of votes between candidates within the same party.