25/02/2016 Election observation
“We welcome the agreement reached yesterday by the Macedonian Parliament to re-schedule the early elections to 5 June 2016,” said Lise Christoffersen (Norway, SOC) and Valeriu Ghiletchi (Republic of Moldova, EPP/CD), co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for post-monitoring dialogue with “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”.
“In the light of our findings last week, and the most recent assessment produced, we believe that this decision, which shows goodwill from all sides, should allow all institutions involved to secure a better election environment and build greater trust in the process, thus enabling continued implementation of the Przino Agreement,” they said.
“We now expect the State Election Commission and all state institutions concerned to do their utmost to meet all deadlines and, among other things, to clean up the voters’ lists and ensure fair access to media during the election campaign, which were contentious issues in the past. We also encourage all political parties to further show responsibility and focus now on the preparation of competitive elections, thus offering a genuine choice to the voters, and refrain from any action that could undermine the credibility of the election process.”