The counting of votes for Sunday's elections has not yet begun across the country, despite four days having passed since election day.
On Thursday, the counting process began in eight more municipalities, bringing the total to 26 municipalities, while in 12 municipalities it is expected to begin on Friday.
At the Municipal Counting Center (MCC) in Pristina, after technical and administrative difficulties on Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday the counting of votes for parliamentary candidates and the verification of those for political entities continued normally, albeit at a slower pace.
Due to the delays in the counting and the shortcomings in its platform, the Central Election Commission was criticized for violating the integrity of the process and affecting its credibility.
“It is seen that the operational plan and the part of the functionalization of the NCCs are really not on time, even those that we have opened we have opened late, with significant problems”, says Sami Hamiti, a member of the CEC from the LDK.
“The longer this publication of the candidates' results is delayed, the greater the dissatisfaction, the greater the pressure, the more alarmed everyone is because there is a lack of trust in the institution”, adds Arianit Elshani.
The Central Election Commission did not rule out the possibility that if the system shows obstacles, they will return to counting according to the old method.
“Let's wait today and tomorrow and see how the counting procedure is going through the system, if everything is in order we will continue, if we have problems in some municipal counting centers we will immediately start a tender procedure for printing some forms that are necessary for counting votes”, declared the head of the CEC, Kreshnik Radoniqi.
Despite the criticism, CEC members said that progress has been made and the vote count for the first time is being done in the most transparent way possible.
“We are much, much better than in the past, the delays are of course related to the expectations that we have given to the public and that this is the first time for us, and the first time for the staff working in this system,” said Alban Krasniqi from VV.
Despite the difficulties, the CEC expressed confidence that the count will be completed within February.
“Since we have not started in all municipal counting centers and see how the process is going, then we have not made an estimate of how long the entire process will take to conclude the count, approximately 10 days to two weeks,” adds Radoniqi.
In parallel with the vote count within the country, the CEC is verifying postal votes. Out of over 8,700 verified envelopes, over 500 have been declared invalid. The total number of postal votes is over 68,700. (A2 Televizion)
A2 CNN Livestream
MUND TE LEXONI GJITHASHTU
