The Democracy for Development Institute continues to organize subsequent roundtables on the “Elections Adjudication – Lessons Learned from Local Elections 2013”. This time the roundtable was held in Gjakova on 25th April 2014, at the “Pashtriku” Hotel. The participants that attended the roundtable include representatives from the Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC), Kosovo Prosecutorial Council (KPC), Kosovo Police (KP), Central Elections Commission (CEC), the Elections Complains and Appeals Panel, Local Elections Commissions (LEC), political parties, civil society and other important structures.

All the participants said that the memorandum was successful, and has given its results, by decreasing enormously the chances of manipulations during the elections of 2013. The readiness of police and persecutors was valued for being always at the scene. Meanwhile, head persecutor Shpresa Bakia said that during the commissioners training, upon learning their responsibilities and penalties in case of manipulations, over 20 individuals were withdrawn from being a commissioner.

In the other hand, the political parties’ representatives mentioned the need of the political parties’ commissioners to have a decent education level, in order to understand their responsibilities and the importance of the electoral process.

The purpose of this roundtable is to discuss the cooperation memorandum between CEC, KJC and KP for the local elections of 2013. Such inter-institutional cooperation has proven to influence more a effective management of the election process compared to 2010. The purpose of this roundtable is to reassess the gaps and recommendations that were taken from the memorandum for the upcoming national elections of 2014.