Full Coverage: Democracy

30.09.2004 The international factors and the Kosovo institutions still have not managed to persuade Serbs to participate in the Elections of 23rd October. The OSCE Mission in Kosovo, which has left open the possibility to the Serbs to be pronounced until 1st October, still has not got any positive signals whether members of this community will participate in the Assembly Elections. This was confirmed also by the OSCE HoM Pascal Fieschi following his meeting with the Kosovo Assembly speaker Nexhat Daci. Nevertheless, Ambassador Fieschi expressed the hope that the Serbs will respond positively to the appeals for participation in the Elections.

29.09.2004 According to the public opinion poll, conducted in August on a sample of 858 young people in six cities in B&H (Banja Luka, Bihac, Mostar, Sarajevo, Zenica and Zvornik), 60% of the polled believes that there should be more young candidates on the election lists, informs the Youth Information Agency (orriginal acronym is OIA).

29.09.2004 With less than two weeks before millions of Afghans are expected to go to the polls, regional warlords backed by the United States pose a greater threat to a free and fair election than the efforts by the ousted Taliban to disrupt the balloting, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

28.09.2004

© TomPaine.com

Despite his standing in the polls, U.S. President George W. Bush's post-9/11 foreign policy views are broadly rejected by both the public and by the elite, according to a major new survey released Tuesday by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR).

28.09.2004 In order to avoid spending the coming four years wondering what possessed us and what the hell were we thinking, a group of young people from Novi Sad started a campaign to animate the people to come out and vote in the second round of elections, scheduled for October 2. The campaign will last this whole week, and it will include various activities, starting from the celebration of the European Day of the Languages, street actions, public concerts and distribution of promotional material and public debates.

25.09.2004 Darko Gunjic, DJ and Talk-Show host at the Banja Luka based BIG Radio, was attacked and beaten up by three unindentified assailants on Wednesday night. The attack took place in front of Gunhic’s home in the Nova Varos quarters of Banja Luka, around 23:00 hours.

23.09.2004 A national survey released this week by the Integrity of Science Working Group finds two-thirds of those surveyed strongly believe government science should be insulated from politics. While 84 percent of the respondents believe government has an important role to play in scientific research, the survey showed that most Americans believe it is unacceptable to ask about party affiliation or political views when considering experts to serve on government scientific advisory panels.

23.09.2004

US elections © Guardian Unlimited

In continuation of their effort to boost voter participation and confidence in the U.S. elections, international election observers will visit communities in Arizona this week. The observers who arrived in the country last week will investigate issues could compromise the integrity of the November elections such as voter disenfranchisement, security of electronic voting machines and influence of corporate and personal wealth on the political process.

23.09.2004 Last week, at an event organized by the Campaign for Youth, representatives of presidential candidates for the November 2004 elections met with hundreds of teenagers and young adults. Asking questions on a variety of topics, from school drop out rates to taxation, the young people sought direct answers to most troubling and important issues in their lives.

21.09.2004 In a paper presented in Kabul last week, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit said absence of trained staff and international observers will cast doubt on the credibility and legitimacy of the forthcoming election. With barely three weeks before the October 9 presidential election, very few international observers have agreed to participate in the election and, recruitment and training of electoral staff have barely begun.

20.09.2004 According to the unofficial results, the democratic parties lead in the local elections in Belgrade, Nis, Kursumlija and Zitoradja (hometown of Svetlana Raznatovic, widow of Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan). In Vojvodina, the extreme right-wing Radical Party leads is the majority of bigger towns and cities, including the provincial capital Novi Sad, Sombor, Sremska Mitrovica).

17.09.2004 A team of 20 independent democracy experts from 15 countries and five continents has arrived in the United States in order to observe this year's presidential election campaign.

16.09.2004 Tomorrow (Friday, September 17), at 12:00 hours, a street action of the European Movement in Serbia will be held in Knez Mihajlova street in Belgrade. The action, in front of the “Ruski Car” Restaurant, designed to promote greater voter turnout at the forthcoming Local Elections in Serbia, is named “Think Globally, Vote Locally.”

16.09.2004 Zeri reports that Central Election Commission (CEC) published the list of Polling Centers in Kosovo, where it identified 570 polling centers in the whole Kosovo.

15.09.2004 Ten days before beginning of the Electoral campaign, the three biggest Kosovo political parties have not yet made public the amounts they will spend during the campaign; however, according to their officials, the amounts will be exceedingly smaller than those spent during the previous Elections campaign.

13.09.2004 In the interview for Radio Free Europe in Macedonian, Xhevdet Hajredini from the "Macedonia Free of Corruption" NGO talks about the anti-corruption commission, the devaluation of the Denar exchange rate, the forthcoming referendum...

13.09.2004 Zadar Anarchist Front issued a statement on the mass lay-off of workers from the Zadar Dairy Company.

13.09.2004 As the countdown to the U.S. November elections continues, arrangements to get outside, independent and non-partisan observers to monitor the elections are moving forward.

10.09.2004 The Civic Association Most plans to accredit bout 3,500 observers for the referendum against the new territorial organization of municipalities in Macedonia.

10.09.2004 Contact Group and UNMIK representatives confirmed that they are organizing a meeting between authorities of Prishtina and Belgrade at experts' level, to discuss decentralization plan. The date and the place of the meeting have not been determined yet. This technical meeting, as they call it, follows the debate on decentralization and harsh reaction of the Serbs to the decentralization plan drafted by the Government of Kosova and UNMIK. The Serbs even put this issue as the main reason for their boycott to elections.