Subhi Jakupi, a representative of ruling BDI and deputy president of the State Election Commission (DIK), is most probably going to take the role of organizing and carrying out the early general elections unless the Parliament elects the president of DIK by the end of this week, Nova Makedonija reports.  

The governing coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and BDI is said to be thinking whether to elect Boris Kondarko as president of DIK by the time the elections are called or run in the elections without a president of the commission, Nova Makedonija has learned from parliamentary sources.

“Although the MPs of these two parties have the required two-thirds majority of more than 80 MPs, the government does not want to risk being criticized for electing the president of DIK, who should be from the ranks of the opposition, without the opposition. On the other hand, if it does not elect Kondarko and organizes elections with incomplete composition of DIK, it risks the regularity of the elections,” sources say.

Although Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski scheduled the election of the DIK president for 21 March, the government failed to secure a two-thirds majority. VMRO-DPMNE and BDI have said since that Kondarko will be elected “when proper conditions are created”. Nobody explains what conditions are being waited for. Veljanoski’s office also confirmed there was no agreement on when to make the election.

Elections without the president of the highest election body are quite possible. According to DIK’s rules of procedure, the commission can work if the meetings are attended by the majority of its members (four of a total of seven) and the decision are taken with the majority votes of the total number of members.

According to the latest modifications to the election rules, DIK may function normally even without a president. The election law now stipulates that in the event the president of DIK is absent or prevented from doing his or her job, the vice president of the commission, who is from the ranks of the government, can call a meeting.

The government explained that this rule was introduced to avoid situations like the one when Aleksandar Novakovski, DIK’s former president, resigned the office at SDSM’s instruction, thus causing the talks between Nikola Gruevski and Branko Crvenkovski over the early elections to be delayed by two weeks. But now that the rule has been introduced, and SDSM has no intention of voting for its candidate, it is not ruled out for the government to let the commission function during the elections without a president.

“It is possible but a political stance should be defined over whether to do it or not,” a VMRO-DPMNE MP confirmed.

On the other hand, SDSM say how the commission functions during the elections is not at all important to them.

“They can do whatever they want. They can elect a president of DIK but they don’t have to. If they wish they are free to conduct elections even with half of the commission’s members. Organizing elections without a president of DIK would be a scandal and it would be tragic for democracy, but should it be us to be concerned about that? Let Gruevski worry about that. We made a promise and are going to keep it: we will be there on the election day and win in the end,” said Andrej Petrov, secretary general of SDSM.

The largest opposition party had previously argued that the government should not even think of electing the president of DIK in Parliament without the opposition.

Analysts say both the opposition and the government are responsible for the decision of the government to run in the elections without a president of the highest election authority. According to them, there are two principles that should be honored to make sure institutions function. The first is to ensure efficiency and not let the process be blocked and the other is democracy.

“The political responsibility is primarily borne by the government. But the opposition has to be responsible too. If SDSM has the right as an opposition to propose the president of DIK then it has responsibility too to realize that or at least participate in the process of his or her election. In other words, as a responsible party SDSM has to return to Parliament and vote for Kondarko. If it decides not to come back, and the government decides to elect the president without the opposition or not elect him at all, then SDSM must not question the legality or legitimacy of the commission. If the opposition does not honor these unwritten rules of political responsibility, then the whole regularity of the elections is at risk,” says Zdravko Savevski, professor of political science.