Sectorial Workshop

NGO And Their Role In The Election Process- Post Festum

Sector’s workshop on the topic ‘Role of the NGO in the election process,” was the last held on the first day of NGO Fair (29/10/2002, 6.30pm until 8pm) and there was a very interesting debate after the introductory presentations of Baskim Mislimi (Toleranca, Struga), Sasho Dodovski (Youth Cultural Center, Bitola), Roberto Belicanec (Center for media development, Skopje), and Pece Taleski (OHO, Skopje).

On the workshop, with Marijana Ivanova as chairperson, the debate was raised about the involvement of the nongovernmental organizations in the activities connected with the elections, about distinction of those activities from promotion of some political parties, for the activities in the following period of time and the future strategy for the following activities.

It was concluded that NGO were promoted in very important factor in the election process, as well as the civil platform aimed at the democratic processes and that they managed to give a great contribution in fair and democratic elections. Yet, representatives of NGO involved in election process also stressed  the weaknesses in their acting, such are great connection with the donors, lack of cooperation with business sector, presence of passive “participation” of some of the organizations, etc.

A few points of the discussion were determined as directions for the future acting of the nongovernmental sector. Those are: founding of the civil election culture, realization of intensive cooperation with the governmental sector, media and business sector, as well as good use of the acquired trust among the public, or as one of the key-note person said, “good climate for us.”