Documents

Analysis including recent reports and recommendations by citizen observer organizations, open source information, and the newly developed Catalogue of Recommendations. Overall findings: Conditions for election observation, both in legislation and in practice, and attitudes towards it vary considerably from country to country. An observed rise in politically-motivated domestic observation can be noted, seriously damaging any credible non-partisan election observation.

The 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections once again proved, for the sixth time in a row, that Ukrainian democracy is solid enough to allow a peaceful transfer of power. Outgoing President Petro Poroshenko accepted his defeat and cleared the way for his successor Volodymyr Zelensky. What marked the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2019? What were their weak points and what are the challenges and tasks which the Ukrainian society and its international partners face in order to improve the electoral processes for the upcoming parliamentary elections? (in German)

The Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS) prepared a report on the situation of human rights in Azerbaijan covering the year 2018 based on publicly available and alternative sources of information. Their conclusion is that there has not been any progress in the situation of human rights in Azerbaijan in 2018.

Promo-LEX Association disapproves of the decision of the Central Electoral Commission to reject the registration of the Initiative Group for conducting a republican legislative referendum on repealing Law No 154 of 20 July 2017, which changed the electoral system into the mixed one. The Association is alarmed by the trends that take shape in the society – when certain important national public authorities limit the citizens’ right to initiate a referendum, as well as to freely express their opinions in a democratic exercise.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor analyzed the recommendations by international election observers and their implementation. According to the report, the current Electoral Code includes several recommendations by OSCE/ODIHR, yet many of these have not been properly adopted. The lack of open discussions during the drafting of the code was unfortunate. The recent elections showed that many recommendations reflected in the Code have not been effectively implemented, and the recommendations not taken into consideration were more than necessary, such as those on taking action against election bribery and ensuring financial transparency of the campaign.

The Norwegian expert Mette Bakken and her Romanian colleague Adrian Sorescu presented the study ‘Electoral System Design in Moldova’ at the international conference on electoral systems in Moldova. Ms Bakken and Mr Sorescu argue that in Moldova, it is not clear what would be the result from passing from one electoral system to another. Therefore, they have developed a number of recommendations for reforming the current system.