Suchergebnisse

When COVID-19 pandemic was announced in March 2020, North Macedonia was in the middle of the electoral process, with a dissolved Parliament and a few days before the start of the electoral campaign. The elections were postponed because the threats of the virus were unpredictable and the strategy to handle it was unknown. Instead of April 2020, the elections were held in July 2020. The changes of the Electoral Code were adopted in order to introduce procedures for voting that would be safe for voters and electoral boards. Also changes of the rules for electoral campaign were made in order to adapt the forms of campaigning to the "new COVID-19 reality". This article analyzes the effects of Covid-19 on the parliamentary elections in North Macedonia in 2020, focusing on the changes on the electoral rules and the electoral campaigning because of COVID-19, as well as the influence of COVID-19 on the turnout of voters. The context of the postponement of the elections, institutional setting and legal solutions are analyzed in the first part of the article. The changes of the rules regarding campaigning and adaptation of political actors to new rules are analyzed in the second part of the article. The third part focuses on the changes of voting procedures and adaptation of electoral management bodies. The last part of the article points to the changes of other rules, mostly on financing and misuse of state resources.

The period since the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991 has shown the political importance of language, as well as the political tensions that can arise over language-related issues. For a long time, multilingualism in Macedonia was a problem that threatened the unity and stability of the country. In 2001 the armed conflict in Macedonia showed that governmental policies of ignoring certain issues fueled ethnic divisions and facilitated a climate of insecurity. In order to terminate the armed conflict, Macedonia has since introduced constitutional changes relevant to linguistic diversity. The constitutional amendment regulating the official use of languages in Macedonia was as a result of a necessary compromise to terminate the armed conflict. The amendment is formulated in a vague and contradictory manner; full of loopholes, views provided on official languages leads to different interpretations and is still subject to disputes between experts, as well as party leaders in Macedonia. This vagueness led to politicians using the topic of the official use of languages as a talking point in every electoral campaign since 2001. This article will examine the challenges and possibilities that came from the constitutional amendment on the use of languages in Macedonia. It will also analyze the loopholes of the legal norms on the use of languages, and the problems of its implementation.

The period since the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991 has shown the political importance of language, as well as the political tensions that can arise over language-related issues. For a long time, multilingualism in Macedonia was a problem that threatened the unity and stability of the country. In 2001 the armed conflict in Macedonia showed that governmental policies of ignoring certain issues fueled ethnic divisions and facilitated a climate of insecurity. In order to terminate the armed conflict, Macedonia has since introduced constitutional changes relevant to linguistic diversity. The constitutional amendment regulating the official use of languages in Macedonia was as a result of a necessary compromise to terminate the armed conflict. The amendment is formulated in a vague and contradictory manner; full of loopholes, views provided on official languages leads to different interpretations and is still subject to disputes between experts, as well as party leaders in Macedonia. This vagueness led to politicians using the topic of the official use of languages as a talking point in every electoral campaign since 2001. This article will examine the challenges and possibilities that came from the constitutional amendment on the use of languages in Macedonia. It will also analyze the loopholes of the legal norms on the use of languages, and the problems of its implementation.