State Election Commission leaves Association of European Election Officials

The Croatian National Electoral Commission (SEC) announced that it had resigned from the Association of European Election Officials (ACEEEO) on March 8th, which mainly includes Central and Eastern European countries.

The decision was made by the SEC unanimously at a session on Tuesday, March 8.

The SEC explained what preceded the decision to withdraw from membership in the Association, of which it had been a member of a long time.

The SEC stated that after the Russian aggression on Ukraine, within the Association, which has 25 members, an initiative was launched for the exclusion/unlimited suspension of the Russian Central Election Commission and the Belarusian Central Commission on Elections and Holding of State Referendums.

At the meeting of the ACEEEO Executive Board on March 2, it was decided that a vote be held among the members, by voting in the first round for or against exclusion from membership, and if a two-thirds majority is not reached, then in the second they would vote for or against unlimited suspension from membership.

The result of the first round was: 9 votes for exclusion, 0 against exclusion, 2 abstentions, 1 vote arrived after the voting expired, while 13 members of the Association did not vote.

As the required majority had not been reached, a second round of voting for or against the unlimited Russian and Belarusian suspension of ACEEEO membership would be held from March 7 to 9.

The SEC held a session on Tuesday (March 8th) to discuss its future status in the Association, given the fact that it voted in the first round to exclude the Russian and Belarusian election commissions, deeming it unacceptable to be a member of the association whose members include countries that conducted war aggression against another state, as well as the fact that 13 of the 25 members of the Association ignored the invitation to vote in the first round. This calls into question the sense of the association’s existence, which aims to promote elections and universally recognized democratic principles, so the SEC unanimously decided to withdraw from ACEEEO membership on March 8, it said.

Immediately after the decision was made, a notification was submitted to the ACEEEO, as well as to all ACEEEO members, added the SEC.

Source: HRT