The State Election Commission (SEC) did not allow the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) to inspect the signatures of support of the candidates for the presidential elections, not even ten days after they sent the request to it.
This was announced by the deputy executive director of the CDT, Biljana Papović, emphasizing that the institution did not allow them to exercise their right to observe all segments of the election process, which, as she says, are guaranteed by the law and international standards.
"And the OSCE/ODIHR mission made a similar request to provide them with "access to observing the process of checking the signatures of the candidate's support as well as the process of checking other documents for the candidate's nomination", which, as explained at the SEC session, would also include insight into signatures and personal data. Papovic said.
Instead of the SEC enabling the smooth exercise of the right to observe the election process for domestic and international observation missions, as was done in previous election cycles, Papović adds that the SEC decides to reduce the transparency of its work, violating the fundamental rules of election observation, and shifting responsibility for this to the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information (AZLP).
The CDT reminded that, in accordance with the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, the SEC issued the CDT an official authorization for election observation, clarifying that "official authorization" is not a random name, but an essential description of the scope of rights and obligations that election observers have in in accordance with international standards, and by which election observation is defined as an integral part of the democratic election process.
"Also, instead of increasing the transparency of the SEC being a daily and implied activity, as they committed themselves to in the memorandum of cooperation signed with our organization, some of the members of this institution are advocating a reduction in the level of transparency of work that has been achieved so far, with great effort." , it is written in the announcement.
That is how those political structures in the SEC, which know how to say that they are progressive and pro-European, "became the loudest advocates of denying the right to observe the elections, but also closing the sessions of the SEC to the public, just a few days after their opening was proclaimed".
The CDT called on the AZLP to correct the injustice caused to the domestic and international observation missions as soon as possible and enable them to once again monitor the course of the elections and the work of the authorities for their implementation, as was the practice before these elections.
Papović explains that the verification of signatures of support and confirmation of candidacies is an essential segment of the election administration's work, and that by denying them access to signatures (and not to other personal data of citizens), we are denied the opportunity to do our job.
"Also, we give our full support to the AZLP to resist any pressures in this process and to make a legal and impartial decision, to check in detail and professionally the international standards of election observation and the domestic legislation which, in addition to enabling us to monitor every segment of the electoral process, also allows us constant insight into voter list that contains a significantly higher level of access to personal data than the one we requested from the SEC," her announcement states.
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