USAID Projects Promote Free and Fair Elections in Macedonia
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| “Do not play with the future” warns the logo of the campaign for free and fair 2009 Macedonian elections. |
After the violent clashes which marred last year’s parliamentary vote, USAID projects sought to promote a stable environment for free and democratic elections in Macedonia. Improvements in the electoral process were considered a key condition for Macedonia to meet in its desire to move toward greater Euro-Atlantic integration, a goal shared by the U.S. Government.
USAID supported the domestic election monitoring project of MOST, the Citizen’s Association for Development of Democratic Institutions. The project aimed to contribute to a more transparent electoral process through non-partisan observation during all phases of the elections. Project activities included monitoring the pre-election period, recruitment and training of volunteers, and deployment of domestic observers. A total of 3750 Macedonian citizens served as election observers, covering more than 60 percent of the country’s polling stations on Election Day. While noting irregularities, MOST concluded that the elections were “conducted in peaceful environment and mostly met the international standards.”
USAID also funded efforts of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to promote an improved electoral process through such activities as local and national campaigns resulting in the public commitment of 36 political parties to support free and fair elections, closed-door meetings with candidates and party activists on proper election conduct, and support for public debates, community meetings, and voter education. During the three-week, pre-election campaign period, NDI convened a total of 291 meetings with political party activists. NDI also launched an extensive six-week public media campaign with the key message “Do not play with the future - Fair elections 2009.” The message was spread in all languages spoken in Macedonia, and NDI leveraged its relationships to promote this message at the highest levels of the political parties. Chris Henshaw, NDI’s Country Director, said that “the overall campaign supporting free, fair and non-violent elections was the result of a fruitful partnership, funded by USAID with further financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, The Balkan Trust for
Democracy, the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic and the OSCE.”
Both rounds of the municipal and presidential elections generally received positive marks from domestic and international observers. The OSCE Office for Democracy and Human Rights issued its preliminary statement, which noted that the elections “met most OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections.” Despite minor irregularities reported during the election period, ODIHR concluded that “election day was peaceful and reflected further improvement in the conduct of voting and counting.”
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