Democratic elections report

“The effective implementation of the Council of Europe Norms remains a major challenge for many member countries. The repeated and severe irregularities that have been identified from one election to another, with the authors not brought to justice, with the public opinion not informed, opens way to destabilization, violence and a constant political crisis”, declared the rapporteur Jean-Charles Gardetto.

The report has three opinions from the respective committees for the legal matters and those of gender equality, media and emigration.

“The emigrants make today 13% of the population. In front of this constantly increasing number, we must help these people to participate. We must guarantee the active and passive rights of those who are residents for more than five years in a country”, declared the Italian representative, Giacomo Santini.

Albania is mentioned in this report together with the problematic countries, for abusing with the administrative resources during the elections; for a partisan regulation in the electoral administration, used by the political parties to block the process of the 2009 elections; for the lack of media independence during the elections and for the low representation of women in politics.

Lise Christoffersen from the Norwegian group declared that “The human right, democracy, the rule of law – we know all these notions by heart, even in our sleep. But the report of Mr. Gardetto shows a great gap between theory and practice in some member countries. The abuse with the administration sources is not positive for anyone, neither is the media control, the bought votes, the intervention in the ballot boxes. Intimidations, threats and violence are not the components of the recipe for free and honest elections. We report for each country in the observing missions, but in this report we see the situation in general.  There has been progress, but the list of bad countries is discouraging and most of them are members for more than 10 years. This is the time to overcome discussion. We need actions. The measures are listed in the report. Use them. Your people deserve them”.

The Parliamentary Assembly monitors the elections since 1989, especially in the Eastern and Southeastern European countries that according to the rapporteur have no tradition of democratic elections.

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