Less than a month after the Constitutional Court’s annulment of the Electoral Code changes that had previously increased the threshold for independent candidacies in elections, ruling majority and opposition MPs, within the Political System Committee, have jointly approved new, similar changes.
The draft-law submitted in the shortened procedure on Thursday was signed off on by VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM, VLEN, and ZNAM.
The following day, it was adopted at the Committee level. However, associations of citizens who came to meet Parliament Speaker Afrim Gashi carrying draft amendments were told it was late for the texts to be submitted. Jana Belceva of Sansa za Centar (Chance for Centar) leveled criticism.
“We hope MPs will think well in terms of whether they will again violate the Constitution and right of citizens to actively participate in elections”, she stated.
Associations also compared “this arrogant” violation of the Court’s decision to “spitting in the face of constitutionality again”.
They added that they would notify the international public, meet with the State Election Commission, and, if necessary, again challenge the text’s constitutionality.
The current thresholds are even higher than 1% in a big number of municipalities where the biggest number of voters live, such as, for instance, Skopje.
The changes, if adopted at a plenary session, too, will provide for a requirement of 100-1,000 signatures per candidacy, depending on the size of a local self-government unit.
In the election race in the capital, that is, in the City of Skopje, at least 3,500 signatures from voters part of the voter list will be required. However, the associations have demanded that 20-300 signatures be required.