Monitors Prepare for Macedonia's June Elections

The association MOST provides the majority of election monitors | Photo by: MOST

The civil association MOST, which provided most local monitors for Macedonia's previous elections, said it plans to deploy more than 3,500 monitors for the vote.

"We plan to cover some 65-70 per cent of polling stations on election day," Teodora Popovska, from MOST, said.

Teams of two monitors will remain in polling stations during the whole voting process. "The rest will be covered by mobile teams," Popovska explained.

One novelty in these elections is voting by the Macedonian diaspora. MOST plans to dispatch monitors to some 20 consulates and embassies where voting will also take place.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, traditionally provides most foreign monitors. The OSCE is expected to reveal its plans for the elections this week.

Judging by previous early elections in 2008 and the presidential and local polls in 2009, the number of foreign monitors should be around 350.

OSCE has a practice of sending three types of monitors; those who follow the process from the start of the campaign; those who arrive in the middle of the campaign and the majority who are present only on election day. The Council of Europe also announced it would send teams to monitor the elections but has so far revealed no numbers.

Macedonia's main opposition Social Democrats warned Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his centre-right VMRO DPMNE party not to contemplate committing fraud.

Gruevski, on the other hand, insists the government will tighten security around the voting process and "severely punish" anyone interfering with the vote.

Additional concern was raised earlier this month after parliament voted in an election legislative without meeting opposition demands. The opposition parties wanted to see their representatives represented in all election teams in each polling station.

The opposition says it fears that the current electoral teams, made up of public-sector workers, are prone to manipulation because of the high level of government influence on the civil service.

"This is the first time that the country is entering an election without a concensus between the government and the opposition, which leaves room for suspicion," Arianit Hoxha, from the opposition New Democracy party, said.

Another concern is the electoral roll, which the opposition says is full of deceased and fictional voters. The government claims the roll has never been better prepared.

The snap polls take place one year before the end of the regular four-year mandate of the VMRO-DPMNE-led government. The polls were announced after months of gridlock caused by the opposition boycott of the parliament, which started in January.