The CRTA democracy watchdog NGO warned on Wednesday that a range of state institutions and local administrations were engaging in what it called electoral engineering ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections.
Oglas
CRTA officials told a presentation of their preliminary campaign report that the election campaign was marked by shrinking freedoms and growing inequalities between electoral contestants and voters.
They said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that at least seven of the 18 approved electoral lists were fictitious or satellite lists and questioned the authenticity of some of the signatures supporting the lists, including parts of the ruling coalition's list, saying some had allegedly been certified in municipal offices without voters being present. Election lists need to have the signed and notarized support of 10,000 voters to be able to submit their lists of candidates for approval to the Republic Election Commission (RIK).
CRTA recorded 116 incidents involving physical violence or verbal threats. It said opposition activists, particularly those associated with the Student List, faced surveillance, interceptions and police interrogation and added that the police was slow to protect opposition candidates and supporters.
It also identified more than 650 potentially abusive activities in more than 1,500 public appearances by state officials. In more than 250 cases, mostly involving public companies, jobs, social assistance or public services were allegedly used to pressure citizens into providing political support.
The report found a substantial imbalance in television coverage. Nearly three-quarters of airtime devoted to political players on national broadcasters went to government officials. The Student List was portrayed negatively in more than 80 percent of coverage, CRTA said.
It also questioned the reliability of the voter register, saying the commission reviewing it had been denied access to essential data. Around 30,000 voters appeared in register extracts outside their expected alphabetical order, prompting CRTA to urge polling boards to check carefully for voters whose names might be misplaced.
Teme