CIVIL Survey: Parties in power are obstructing the State Elections Commission

In the online survey State Elections Commission (SEC) and the Voters Register conducted by CIVIL in the period March 23 – 31, 2016, 91,53% of the respondents consider the Voters Register not to be accurate. Nevertheless, 86.3% of them find the publication of data from the Voters Register for public review to be a positive step made by the SEC.

The online survey was conducted within the framework of the Free Elections for Free Citizens project. The results of this survey detect the standpoints of the citizens regarding the irregularities of the Voters Register and whether there is enough time for clearing the register until June 5,2016.

The survey included 816 respondents.

Q6 EN — **Do you consider the Voters Register to be accurate?**

All respondents were able to answer 8 questions concerning the work of the SEC and the irregularities related to the Voters Register.

In terms of the question “Have you yourselves found any irregularities in the Voters Register”, 76.65% of the respondents replied positively, while 91.75% of the respondents replied negatively to the question related to the decision made by the SEC for withdrawing the application for reporting irregularities in the Voters Register.

Q7 EN — **Do you consider the publishing of the Voters Register for public review in the manner in which it was done to be a positive step?**

It can be concluded that 76.90% of respondents doubt the possibility that the Voters Register can be cleared for holding credible elections on June 5, 2016.

Q10 EN — **Do you consider that the Voters Register can be cleared in order to hold credible elections on June 5, 2016?**

Nevertheless, when asked “How do you assess the work of the SEC”, out of the total number of surveyed respondents, there is a difference of 0.12% among those who are still reserved, or who cannot asses the work of the SEC neither positively, nor negatively (33.99%) and those who negatively evaluated the work of the SEC (34.11%).

Q13 EN — **Who is obstructing the work of the SEC?**

As many as 89.63% of respondents believe that the work of the SEC is being obstructed, and even 91.98% believe that the obstruction in the work of the SEC comes from the parties in power.

In the previous online survey The Przino Agreement and the elections that CIVIL conducted in the period February 22 – March 1, most respondents considered that the work of the Special Prosecutors Office was being obstructed.

The Free Elections for Free Citizens project is financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Biljana Jordanovska