Democracy in Action (DiA), with 61 long-term observers, during the thirty-day campaign for local elections, monitored 1,369 activities of certified political entities, held interviews with candidates in election contest to discuss the progress of election campaign, as well as monitored MECs and CEC meetings.

Based on our monitoring, we consider that the election campaign was peaceful and was carried out in a competitive environment. Candidates for Mayors and those for Municipal Assemblies freely revealed their options and political programmes, with a safe and unhampered participation of citizens and media. A small number of incidents has been marked, which were isolated cases and did not damaged the election campaign.

Citizens’ participation in election rallies
Political entities generally held election rallies with up to 100 participants, namely 52% of their meetings were such; then they had meetings with stakeholders and door-to-door meetings with citizens. In the last week of campaign, we observed an intensification of meetings with citizens and especially larger election rallies with up to 1,000 participants.

Utilization of public resources
Public resources have been utilized even during this election campaign, namely in 82 cases, where we observed the utilization of official vehicles as well as participation of civil servants and official persons in campaign.

Hate speech
Political entities have been more restrained in using hate speech; out of all activities monitored by DiA, the use of hate speech was identified in 22 cases.

Involvement of children in the campaign
Election campaign was marked with the participation of children, namely in 30% of monitored election campaign activities, or 3,994 children who participated in campaign.

Access of persons with disabilities
Provision of access for persons with disabilities was another problem faced in the election campaign of political parties. We observed that persons with disabilities were not provided access in most of these activities, namely in 29% of activities. Persons with disabilities have participated in 151 activities of political entities.

Women participation
Number of women nominated as candidates for mayor is only 8, out of 204 candidates competing for mayor at the country level.

Women participation continued in low levels during the entire election campaign period. In all activities monitored by DiA, the average of women participation was 10%. Participation of women as speakers was at 21%, as there were 3691 men speakers and only 974 women speakers.

Media presence
Media have participated in 51% of election activities monitored at the country level and they have reported freely.

Provision of security
In most of monitored cases, Kosovo Police took care of providing security at election activities. During the 30-day election campaign, half of activities held by political entities had no security at all.

Observing the elections and preparations by DiA

Democracy in Action is ready to observe local elections in all 38 municipalities of Kosovo. We have recruited around three thousand (3,000) observers, who attended training sessions and are ready to cover all 2,505 polling stations foreseen to be opened in the Election Day.

Coordinating Centre will be located in Prishtina (Hotel Sirius), where, with the help of 150 volunteers, we will collect all data from the field to be then analyzed and published. We recall that during the campaign period, in addition to monitoring of political entities activities, DiA was actively involved in informing and educating the voters on the importance of participating in elections and how to cast their votes.

We wish that the good tradition built in organizing elections, especially from elections of 2013 and onwards, be maintained also in these elections. Political entities and other institutions involved in election management have shown maturity and high-level of responsibility. Every contested election result guarantees no good governance in that municipality and at the same time seriously damages the reputation of political entity and of the democracy in that country.

Therefore, we call upon all 91 political entities in competition to restrain from any form of pressure on voters or attempts to manipulate with the citizens’ will.

We call upon the security institutions to be on duty in order to guarantee a calm election atmosphere. Greater attention should be paid to Serbian-majority municipalities. In previous elections, there were reports about pressure on voters in these areas and therefore, the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo should be ready to prevent the repetition of such scenarios.

All citizens entitled to vote should participate in elections and decide with their vote for better administration services, more qualitative infrastructure and better healthcare.

Voters participating for the first time in elections should be careful in order for their ballots not to be declared as invalid. In the Election Day, they will get two ballots. In the ballot for Mayors, they should vote only for one candidate, whereas in the second ballot, they should first select only one political entity, and then in the right side of the same ballot select only one candidate for Municipal Assembly.