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Another Eight Stations Cancelled in Kosovo Poll
Pristina | 09 December 2009 | Lawrence Marzouk
The results of a further eight polling stations were cancelled by Kosovo’s Central Election Commission, CEC, on top of the 15 annulled by the Election Complaints and Appeals Commission, ECAC, Balkan Insight has learnt.
A CEC spokesman said on Wednesday that the results had been cancelled by the Counting and Results Centre for a variety of technical reasons, including that coffee had been spilt on some of the necessary documentation at one polling station.
The revelation increases the number of polling stations where results have not been counted by more than 50 per cent. Balkan Insight has also discovered that 77 polling stations in Serb areas did not open and were therefore not counted.
This means that almost 4.5 per cent of the total 2,256 polling stations were not included in the final election results from 15 November.
When first contacted about the annulment of the eight polling stations earlier this week, a CEC spokesman denied the existence of the decision.
When pressed on the issue on Wednesday, after Balkan Insight had confirmed with sources the polling station numbers, the same spokesman said that the decision had been mentioned at a meeting of the CEC.
A CEC decision published on its website cancels the results of three of the additional eight polling stations because of mismatches on the reconciliation and results forms. The remaining five cancelled polling stations do not appear in any decision on the CEC website.
The decision is dated 23 November, before the final results were released on 26 November.
Four of the affected polling stations are in Vushtrri, one in Skenderaj, one in Peja, one in Malisheve and one in Pristina.
The second round of the local election takes place on Sunday, with the run-off for mayoral candidates in 21 municipalities.
