Democracy in Action | Elections 2007

Press Release

17 November 2007

14:00

Press Release for media for the proceedings of the vote until noon

Until 12 oclock the voting process generaly went in a proper manner. Observers of the “Democracy in Action” have registered irregularities and the events as follow.

Gjakova

In the town of Gjakova, a large number of voters are voting with conditional ballots. Its seems there are problems with the voting lists. In one voting center there is only one information desk which is insufficient for the large number of voters who ask for information. In one voting center 100 persons have voted with conditional ballot, whereas in another center untill 12:00 with conditional ballot have voted 50 citizens.

Deçan

In Junik the lid of a ballot box was missing, which was brought at 09:00 am when the voting started. In the polling stations 0104c07 (in the “Edmond Hoxha” School) envelopes where brought late and as a result of this the polling station was not opened until 09:45 am. Untill 11:00am around 13% of the total registered voters have plced their ballots.

Prishtina

In the polling station “1 Tetori Hall” there is no heating and is very cold. This problem, which is creating difficulties in voting by noon 12:00 was not solved.

In Hajvali, one voter entered the polling station wearing a hat of the AKR, but after objections from the officials, he took it off.

In the polling station in Babinmoc, around 12:00 ocklock the box for municipal elections which was closed, was seen to be open and stuffed with ballots. The PS Committee requested to bring in international observers.

In the polling station 1911e (Ismail Qemali School) polling station 08, the official for controlling the fingers gave the UV lights to the political party observers to perform the verification of the voters, and for a while she was not present in the polling station.

Gjilan/Gnjilane

In the village of Partesh, inhabited by a Serb majority, citizens at 11:00 o’clock the polling station was closed, no citizen had voted.

Gracanica

Untill 12:00 o’clock, according to our observers in one polling station around 50 serb citizens had voted, whereas in the majority of other polling stations no person placed a ballot.

Mitrovica

In the northern part of Mitrovica city, no serb had voted untill 12:30. In the northern municipalities untill 12:00 only Albanians have voted, in Leposaviq over 20 citizens, in Zveqan over 25, in the village of Çaber of Zubin Potok over 120 have voted.

In the polling station of Rashan there was more then one observer from the same political party, an occurrance which was observed in some other polling stations. In one case, a third observer of LDD was reported to have entered the polling station.

According to our observer, the PDK observer in this polling station is telling voters how to vote and sugesting to them how to vote for PDK.

Sejdi Çela, candidate for the municipal assembly from the LDK was seen several times in the school-yard in Rashan whre the votes where being placed. Close to Rashan there were AAK poster within 100 meteres from the polling center.

Vushtrri

In the village of Upper Stanovc, in the polling place 5 and 6 voters were not being checked with a UV llamp. The director of the school (Behxhet Dregaj, activist of LDK) tried to help voters on how to place a ballot. In one polling place, observers of PDK threatened as a reaction. Reportedly, a number of persons votes more then one time. The situation has been calmed after police intervention.

It is visible that all around Kosovo, directors of the schools, as polling centers, have been hired as managers. The problem is school directors are often activists of political parties. Since these persons seldom are known as activists of the political parties, has caused confusion and fear among our observers. In some cases, they have been observed to try to help the voters, which should not be allowed (a case in a polling place in Vushtrri).

Press Release