CRTA Election Observation Mission Commences Monitoring of the Electoral Process
CRTA has activated its observation mission ahead of extraordinary elections scheduled for December 17, 2023. As in previous years, CRTA’s Election Observation Mission will monitor the entire electoral process, including the campaign, Election Day, and the post-election process up until the official declaration of results.
A team of long-term observers, deployed across all regions of the country, has initiated on-the-ground monitoring of political actors’ activities in the pre-election campaign. They are also closely monitoring the work of the election administration and other institutions, while the media monitoring team is tracking the reporting on national media outlets.
Since the previous elections, there have been no significant changes in the legal framework and institutional practices aimed at improving the quality of the electoral process or creating better conditions for free and fair elections. CRTA’s ongoing media monitoring findings point to a serious deficit of political pluralism in the public sphere, and research on the field indicates a worrying prevalence of political pressure on citizens.
“Since 2016, when we began observing elections, we have witnessed a consistent erosion of electoral conditions and the absence of concrete measures that could fundamentally halt the deterioration of the integrity of the electoral process. These issues primarily relate to the problems of media inequality among election participants, misuse of public resources, and pressure on voters,” states Raša Nedeljkov, the Head of CRTA’s Election Observation Mission.
CRTA encourages citizens to report instances of abuse of office for campaigning, misuse of public resources, vote-buying, or voter intimidation to CRTA’s legal team at the email: [email protected].
CRTA’s Election Observation Mission adheres to the highest international standards for citizen election observation, and based on its observations, CRTA has formulated a wide range of recommendations for improving electoral conditions.
