KOSOVO

NATIONAL INTEGRITY SYSTEM (NIS) ASSESSMENT
On a small positive note, for the first time in 2013, the CEC
administered local elections throughout the Kosovo territory,
including the municipalities in the north of Kosovo. The 19
April 2014 agreement between Kosovo and Serbia called
for the OSCE’s involvement in “facilitating” these elections in
accordance with Kosovo law and international standards. The
CEC raised the concern that this would result in limited access
to information with regards to the electoral process in the north
of Kosovo, in particular for out-of-country voting. The chair
publicly appealed to the OSCE to provide a written report. 32
ENEMO’s report of 2013 stated that the unclear role and the
OSCE’s interference may cause lack of trust and challenge
the functioning of the system of electoral administration. 33
TRANSPARENCY (LAW)
SCORE 2011 50 2015 75
To what extent are there provisions in place to
ensure that the public can obtain relevant
information on the activities and decisionmaking
processes of the electoral
management body?
The 2011 NIS report indicated that there were not enough
legal provisions to require that the CEC be transparent in its
activities and decision-making. The major changes in legislation
regarding transparency include the amendments to the Law
on Political Party Financing in 2013. The CEC shall provide an
annual report to the Assembly, 34 inclusive of information about
activities of the CEC. As for election periods, it is required that
within 60 days from the day of the official announcements of
the election result, the CEC shall publish a complete report on
the election expenditures and the manner of their spending. 35
An accredited observer shall have access to all meetings
and documents of an MEC. If an MEC does not allow attendance
at a meeting, or access to a document, a complaint
may be filed with the CEC. The CEC shall reach a decision
on a complaint within 48 hours and take such action as it
considers appropriate. 36 In addition, ECAP’s decisions shall
be published in accordance with ECAP’s rules of procedure
and shall become publicly available at ECAP’s webpage. 37
The CEC Secretariat shall make the voters’ list available and
accessible at the MEC Office in each municipality or other
locations in conformity with data protection law. The results
of the counts at the polling station shall be posted in the
polling centre by its chair. The CEC is requested to publish
the election results after they have been certified. Within 60
days from the day of the official announcement of the election
result, the CEC shall publish a complete report on the
election expenditures and the manner of their spending. 38
The transparency of party finances has been reinstated in the
amended Law on Financing of Political Parties 39 adopted in
2013. It requires that the CEC and political parties publish annual
financial reports and campaign disclosure reports on their
respective websites and in national daily newspapers. Parties
are obliged to report all contributions (over 100 Euro), sources of
contributions/donors, expenditures etc. and execute all financial
transactions through a single bank account. If parties fail to
do so, heavy punitive measures are foreseen. For instance, if
parties do not prove the origin of their income source for over
20,000 euro they will be fined three times that amount. 40
TRANSPARENCY (PRACTICE)
SCORE 2011 25 2015 25
To what extent are reports and decisions of
the electoral management body made public
in practice?
According to the 2011 NIS report, the CEC did not offer
sufficient information to the public. The CEC was largely
criticised for not sharing information on its website and not
holding enough press conferences. However, in the last four
years the CEC has slightly improved transparency in terms
of sharing its reports and decisions with the public.
Its website is more regularly updated owing to the support of
international donors. 41 On its website, the CEC makes public the
laws and rules pertaining to elections, all its decisions, lists of MEC
members, list of polling centres, press releases and election reports,
memorandums, and forms. The schedule of operations for
electoral activities is also made public. There is an email address
where interested parties can post questions related to requests for
access to public documents. For the most part, the information
is up-to-date. In addition, the CEC organises press conferences
on a regular basis, and the meetings are open to the public.
The ORPP also notifies political party officials on the changes
pertaining to rules and procedures applicable to party financing. 42
As far as the election process is concerned, the CEC came to a
final decision as recommended by domestic monitoring CSOs
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