KRIIK assesses as very important, even vital for the state of democracy in the country, the legalization of the activity and financial reporting of electoral subjects.
Full transparency, proper and complete reporting according to the legal regulatory framework and then the control of financing for election campaigns, but also of the entire annual activity of political parties, remains and constitutes a real challenge for institutions and law enforcement in the country, where the Commission Central Elections remains de facto the only institution mandated by law and fully accepted by all political actors.
The reformatting and construction of the new CEC, after the legal amendments made following the Political Agreement of June 5, 2020, “politically amnestied” all previous violations committed by the electoral subjects and with an agreed and full political will they were given appropriate powers to the CEC to oversee this major issue. The latter, under the judgment of KRIIK, constitutes the touchstone for the CEC Institution and its Administration in building a new stage of relations in the state-forming process, that between law enforcement and politics, including leaders, administrators, candidates and even and its deputies.
The decision-making of the CEC regarding the financing of the campaign for the Parliamentary Elections of April 25, 2021, is extremely important and significant, either from the point of view of the substantive understanding of this Mission by the CEC Administration itself, or even from the point of view of the Institutional Approach that will have and how the CEC will further develop it in the future.
In this context, KRIIK evaluates the work done by the CEC and the drafting of the audit report of the funds received and spent by electoral subjects in the 2021 Assembly Elections, but judges that there are elements not included in it and that the report is not addressed with a full proactive approach of the CEC in developing the responsibilities, role and powers given to it by the legislator.
KRIIK strongly supports the need to address all violations documented and officially made available to your Institution in June 2022, in addition to their publication in the Final Report published in February 2022.
However, in the conditions where we are only one day before the session of the meeting for the examination of this Report by the State Election Commissioner, I bring to attention first of all the need to address violations not only against political parties, as legal entities, but in order of seen against nominal individuals who exercise functions, duties and responsibilities in violation of legal provisions.
The political and institutional integrity of political parties is inextricably linked to the political and individual integrity of their functionaries, representatives or candidates.
Specifically, the CEC should see and therefore sanction the violations of the candidates as their direct responsibility and not as a violation committed by the relevant political party under the legal provision of a report not in accordance with the approved format.
A large part of the Candidates for MPs, whose integrity is presumed to be intact during the election campaign for seeking the vote of confidence from the public as a form of expression of personal commitment to full law enforcement and action in the interest of citizens, society and the Albanian state , turn out to have:
a) refused to declare and submit a self-declaration report;
b) hidden expenses, such as those already proven to have been made for advertising on social networks (Facebook and Instagram);
c) hiding the respective income for these expenses; and finally
d) their dishonest attitude and false statement, in the case of (b) and (c).
If we emphasize the fact that a good part of these Candidates already enjoy the mandate of the Deputy (some for the above violations, some for accepting funds with a value greater than ALL 50,000 and not through the bank account), their nominal sanction of The CEC becomes even more necessary and the decision-making process of the CEC extremely significant and meaningful in terms of equality before the law and the future of law enforcement and the functioning of the institution.
Sanctioning the financiers of political parties for their candidacy in the candidate lists of the respective party, in open opposition to the ban imposed by the law, also constitutes a significant decision-making.
In conclusion, KRIIK considers it very necessary and urges the CEC to give the appropriate dimension to the findings from the election campaign Monitors mechanism, as well as the mechanism for receiving indications from third parties, as they are the data reported by KRIIK, considering and following the necessary verification process regarding the Electoral Offices opened by the electoral subjects.
From the verification done, there is a difference of 181 electoral offices undeclared by the electoral subjects, or 38% in relation to the number declared by them.
This number of undeclared Electoral Offices carries in itself a series of other necessary expenses related to their proper functioning, which as a whole imply the responsibility of the respective political parties for not declaring correctly and truthfully the expenses related to them, and consequently also income to cover them.