The Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Kreshnik Radoniqi, predicted on Thursday that the process of counting all votes for parliamentary candidates could last up to two weeks, although no precise estimate has been made.
"Since we have not started in all Municipal Counting Centers to see how the process is going there, we have not made an estimate of how long the entire process will take to complete the count, but an approximate estimate will be 10 days, two weeks," said Radoniqi.
At the CEC meeting, it was announced that the process of counting votes for candidates for deputies has already begun in 18 municipalities. In eight municipalities, the counting is expected to begin today, while preparations are being made in 12 others.
Kosovo held regular parliamentary elections on February 9.
With the new Law on Elections in Kosovo, adopted in 2023, votes for parliamentary candidates were supposed to begin being counted on the morning of February 10, but CEC officials have cited administrative problems as the reason for the delays.
The Director of the Office for Registration, Certification and Financial Control of Political Entities, Besnik Buzhala, said that the causes of the delays in counting are problems in the provision of information technology services, such as connecting cameras to laptops and monitors.
He said that the CEC is engaging information technology professionals in these municipalities to fulfill the functionalization aspect.
CEC officials have called on Buzhala to have a Plan B ready, in case the system continues to fail, or there are other problems with access to it.
He has guaranteed that if problems continue to be reported in the coming days, then the CEC will return to the old method and will open a tender to provide three types of forms, to conclude this process as soon as possible.
However, CEC officials have unanimously agreed not to fight for speed, but for the accuracy of the results.
The CEC also faced server problems on election day, when only votes for political entities were counted. Some have suggested that the site may have been the target of a cyberattack.
The Chairman of the CEC, Kreshnik Radoniqi, said that there is no additional information, as the case now belongs to the Kosovo Police and the State Prosecution.
Non-governmental organizations have blamed the CEC for the problems that have arisen since the start of vote counting.
The ruling parties have blamed the Government, although it has responded by saying that it is not responsible for the CEC servers, and that the software was donated to the CEC by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), while it has considered the accusations against the executive branch a low-level attempt "to cause confusion, in order to reduce trust in the electoral process and its results."
After 99 percent of votes counted, the Vetëvendosje Movement leads with over 40 percent of the vote, the Democratic Party of Kosovo is second with around 22 percent of the vote, the Democratic League of Kosovo third with 17 percent of the vote, followed by the coalition between the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the Social Democratic Initiative with around 7 percent of the vote.
Neither party has secured the necessary votes to form a government – as the votes of 61 MPs are needed – so political experts have warned that Kosovo could face political turbulence in the coming days and weeks./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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MUND TE LEXONI GJITHASHTU
