The Memorandum of Cooperation for the Electoral Process is signed

30.09.2020

The Institute Democracy for Development has for several years now worked closely with institutions related to the electoral process. Therefore, the signing of this Memorandum aims to strengthen the ongoing cooperation and institutional coordination regarding the electoral process. The signatory institutions of this memorandum are the Central Election Commission (CEC), the Election Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP), the Kosovo Police (KP), the State Prosecutor (SP), the Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC) and the Independent Media Commission (IMC).

The Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo says that the vote is personal, equal, free and secret, but in order to achieve this, the representatives present at the ceremony emphasized that a permanent commitment of the institutions is needed. Therefore, inter-institutional cooperation is needed in order to serve free and democratic elections.

The inclusion of the Independent Media Commission in the Memorandum will enable better coordination so that the next elections will be more transparent and more democratic. The participants emphasized that despite the fact that there was engagement and cooperation between these signatory institutions, the accession of the Independent Media Commission formally concretizes and strengthens the cooperation further.

During this ceremony, the findings of the paper “Establishing justice in elections” were presented. Among other things, it was noted that the number of complaints is significantly higher in local elections than in parliamentary elections. This is because in local elections each municipality is considered a race in itself and can be contested as such, and the number of political entities and candidates running is many times higher than in parliamentary elections.

This event was organized with the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and IFES.