The Coalition of NGOs for the observation of elections, Democracy in Action (DnV), held the first press conference on the election campaign. The conference saw the presentation of the findings of a research by KDI, in cooperation with Transparency International from the Czech Republic, on the expenditures of political parties for the campaigns being held for these elections, as well as a brief on the progress of the election campaign so far.

Regarding the research, David David Ondráčka from Transparency International Czech Republic, reported that a questionnaire with eight questions on pre-election campaign expenditures was sent to political entities. KDI has contacted 39 individual political entities, who in many cases were part of pre-election coalitions.

“The level of responsibility of the political entities is quite low, with only six out of 39 entities responding positively to the call to provide data on their expenditures. Out of these six, two stated that they did not have their own funds but they would be part of the other partners' campaigns, while four other subjects responded to the questionnaire. These are KDTP (Democratic Party of Kosovo), CDU (Centar Demokratska Stranka) from Coalition Vakat, Nova Demokratska Stranka and Pokret Za Gora (PG)” he stated.

He also clarified that political parties who are willing to publish their data now, can still send data that will be published on the KDI’s website.

Mjellma Hapçiu Alijaj, from Democracy in Action, pointed out that the transparency and financial accountability of political parties is a prerequisite for the democratization and functioning of the entities based on international standards.

“The Declaration signed by political entities on May 29th, facilitated by the Democracy for Development (D4D) Institute, is an indicator that the parties have pledged financial transparency and we will monitor whether these commitments will be fulfilled. Also, we expect to deepen the cooperation with civil society regarding financial transparency by taking over the fulfillment of one of the committing points of this declaration”, she added.

Ismet Kryeziu from Democracy in Action, spoke about the progress of the election campaign, announcing that DiA is following the campaigns with 60 long-term observers. Based on the reports, he announced that 77 activities of political entities throughout the country were monitored in the first two days of the election campaign, most of which were public gatherings. The majority of election activities monitored by DnV have been meetings with 50 to 500 participants, while 6 of them have been gatherings with over 1000 participants.

Incidents

Kryeziu explained that for most of the activities, security has been provided by the Kosovo Police. He said that, in general, the atmosphere during and after the activities was reported as quiet, excluding the case of an organized activity by Srbska Lista in Novobërdë, where it was reported a tense atmosphere during the activity and it was also reported that this political entity has decided that there will be no public meetings in this municipality. Also on the first day of the election campaign, another incident was reported in the municipality of Graçanica, where political entities SLS and LS had a dispute pertaining the usage of a billboard, in which case the Kosovo Police intervened.

Public resources

Kryeziu added that the use of the public resources was observed in 13 out of 77 monitored electoral activities, such as the usage of official vehicles and the participation of civil servants.

Women's participation

Women's participation in the two days of the campaign, for the monitored activities, was approximately 15%. Also, during these activities speeches were given by 274 men (respectively 79%) and 72 women (respectively 21%).

Other data

 

Based on the monitoring, in the 21 activities the presence of children was noted, in total their number has gone over 300 children. 16 activities were attended by people with disabilities, in total there were approximately 40 persons, whereas 16 electoral activities where inaccessible for people with disabilities. The media were not present in 32 out of 77 monitored countrywide election activities, while in the activities they participated they were not prevented from reporting freely. DnV is also monitoring the use of the Facebook social network by coalitions and political entities since the official start of the election campaign.