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Failure
to respect the legal deadlines may violate the electoral standards
Tirana
May 25, 2005
Albanian
Helsinki Committee confirms with regret and concern that the excessive
delayed establishment of the ELC-s as well as the fact that the 18
ELC-s have not been constituted yet, throws doubt into the
normal proceeding of the further electoral process.
There
is one week left from the deadline when the MP candidates should
submit ELC-s the relevant documentation for their registration.
Submission
and the review of this documentation in
the conditions of lack of training or a formal and non-qualitative
training of the ELC-s can delay and compromise this process as well.
Under
the law, ELC is compelled to validate the accuracy of any data that this
documentation contains and turn them back for further fulfillment if
they lack data.
In
this respect AHC considers the content of the article 80 of the
Electoral Code where it is stated that: ‘The MP candidates of the
political parties as well as the independent candidates that do not
hold term of offices in the parliament, are obliged to attach to the
above information a list with the signatures of 300 electors that
reside in that constituency and whose names appear on the
preliminary lists of the electors of that constituency.
AHC
shares the opinion that ELC-s shall validate the accuracy of the
data and shall not justify with the arguments ‘there is not
enough time’, ‘we’re late’ etc.
The
same thing is true for the non-parliamentary parties that are registered as electoral
subjects at CEC and that are
obliged in this case to submit a list of candidates for 40
parliamentary seats. This list shall be supported by the
signatures of 7000 voters registered in the electors’ preliminary
lists.
AHC
considers as necessary that as regards this issue there must be
reference to that part of the Code of Good Conduct for the
Elections, adopted by the Venice Convention which states: ‘ The
signature verification procedure shall be done based on clear rules,
especially on those
related to the deadlines and shall be applicable to all the
signatures’ (see translation Albanian pg 17)
AHC
is convinced that ELC members can successfully achieve their duties
if they consider law as the highest authority, if they are trained
through testing as OSCE/ODIHR and Venice Commission, if in carrying
out their functions they appear to be impartial and transparent. To
this end the understanding on
the part of all the electoral subjects is also sought for as well as
the implementation on their part of the deadlines and requirements
provided for in the Electoral Code.
AHJC
considers the rigorous
enforcement of the law as crucial element that guarantees the
achievement of the standards in the parliamentary or local
elections.
The
electoral campaign officially starts on June 3, 2005. There is
still possibility to fix some of the identified gaps. If there is
political will, the further obstacle can be overcome and the
election of July, 3 of this year can be an confirmation that we know
how to hold fair, honest and uncontested elections.
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