Whether reforms in the electoral system are needed is the question that was debated today by Macedonian and Slovak experts at the fourth plenary session of the National Convention for the European Union in the Republic of North Macedonia (NCEU-MK) in the direction of our efforts to be part of the future of Europe.
The purpose of this debate was to bring recommendations through which we will bring the citizens closer to the political system, but also the political system to the citizens, from where it derives its legitimacy.
” The National Convention from the first plenary session until today, with 34 sessions of 5 working groups with 2000 participants and over 250 adopted recommendations, maintained and expanded the dialogue for achieving European standards, said the coordinator of NCEU-MK and president of EM-MK, prof. Mileva Gjurovska.”
According to her, the Slovak experts contributed a lot to the success of the Convention with their experiences on their path to EU membership, but also as an equal member for 16 years. In that context, the Slovak Ambassador Henrik Markus pointed out that North Macedonia could serve as one of the best examples of dealing in good neighborly relations when resolving the open name issue, but was not sufficiently rewarded for it.
“Making Europe a better place, especially in your dealings with good neighborly relations, was an unprecedented contribution, especially the changing of your country’s name, but it was not rewarded with the most logical result – the start of real membership negotiations. However, this conference opens a new opportunity on how we see our future and what kind of life we want to create for ourselves and our new generations,” said Ambassador Markus.
The director of the Slovak foreign policy association, Tomas Strazay, on the other hand, pointed out that the numerous recommendations arising from the National Convention help the Macedonian authorities, which is very important for building interdepartmental policies.
This, as Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, MP and professor at the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus Primus”, pointed out, refers to today’s topic about the need for reforms in the electoral system also, which “must pass through the filter of the non-governmental sector and there should be more debates like this one organized by the European Movement.”
According to Siljanovska, in the process of reforming the electoral system, it is necessary to observe two principles – representativeness, but also stability.
“The representativeness increases when the whole country is one constituency, but we must start from the reality. We can not implement a model with good practice without considering the specifics of our system. The electoral system is too important in the electoral process to allow it to be used only for partisan and political reasons. There must be a consensus and a wide dialogue for electoral reforms,” Siljanovska said, recalling that even in Britain a referendum was held on whether to change the electoral system or not.
The professor from the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus Primus” at UKIM from Skopje, Renata Deskoska, also pointed out the actuality of the topic, which as she said is important due to non-compliance with international standards, but also due to the fact that in the reports for our country there are always the same recommendations.
“Political parties seem to have kidnapped the election process, and the citizens have remained passive. This must change and they must become guardians of the electoral process,” she said, adding that the OSCE recommends that citizens also should be given the right to object to violations of the electoral process.
Deskoska suggested open lists according to the Italian model at least as a pilot project in the upcoming local elections, given that after the local elections we will have a three-year period without elections, which will be a good opportunity for it to become a process of analysis of the electoral process, achieving electoral models according to European standards. Professor Deskoska also suggested a change in the election process of the members of the SEC, which will have to be transparent and instill confidence to the citizens, not only in the political parties, as well as the change in the way of financing the election campaigns, especially in the part of its control.
Ceara Castaldo, Election Adviser to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights referred to the announcement of the results and the important aspects that the ODIHR considers in education and public awareness, citizens should be aware that even the smallest changes in the electoral process can lead to dramatic changes in the number of members of parliament.
Her colleague Raul Muresan, project coordinator of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in support of the Western Balkan elections, concluded that a formal framework for changing the electoral system should be developed. Any change in the system should take place in an appropriate transparent process and should be decided by specialists, not just politicians.
The professor at the Faculty of Philosophy UKIM from Skopje, Ilo Trajkovski, pointed out that it is very important for the electoral system to be stable so that there are no new election crises and an even greater decline in trust in the main social institutions.
“Changes in the electoral system are not a technical issue but policy-making, and for that purpose the involvement of the general public is especially important,” Trajkovski said.
The professor of the Faculty of Sociology at UKIM, Konstantin Minoski, also joined the debate, saying that a stable electoral system cannot be expected without a stable political system and stable institutions, because it is a fact that at the moment “we function as an informal bi-national state” and the parliament is reduced to “voting machine”. For him, the problem is not what the law is, but how it is implemented.