ACEEEO Executive Board Annual Meeting

[02. 04. 2004] A delegation of the Central Elections Commission of Albania headed by its chairman, Ilirjan Celibashi participated in the ACEEEO Executive Board Annual Meeting, held in Bratislava, Slovakia on April 22-23, 2004.

Following up the decisions of the ACEEEO Annual Conference held in London in November 2003, the Executive Board examined the activity of the Association, decided that the next Annual Conference will hold in Tirana on September 9-11, 2004 and elected unanimously the CEC Albania Chairman Mr. Celibashi as the President of the Executive Board and of ACEEEO.

The Association of the Central and Eastern Europe Election Officials (ACEEEO) was founded in Budapest in 1991 and Albania is one of its founding members. The preamble of the statute of the Association says:

The signatories, representatives of the Central Elections Officials of Central and Eastern Europe are convinced that the historic mission of democracy includes:

The existence of political freedom and a favorable environment for a fair political, economic and social development.

The conduct of free, fair and transparent elections and guaranteeing the secrecy of voting, which are the perfect means for establishing and consolidating the representative democracy.

Recognizing the importance and impartiality of Central Elections Commissions.

The mission of the Association

The mission of the Association of Central and Eastern Europe Election Officials is to hold a non-party forum, not dependent on the governments of respective countries, with the aim of exchanging information among election experts and the highest election officials throughout the whole region the Association covers, to discuss and act in order to promote free and transparent elections, having as its primary goal sustaining the good governance and democracy.

ACEEEO is directed by the Executive Board, composed of the chairmen of election
commissions of the Russian Federation, Croatia, Slovakia, Ukraine,
Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Albania. This association enjoys the consultative status
with the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission, OSCE/ODIHR and its goal is
the reaching and meeting of international election standards by the member states.

The President of the Association is elected through open voting by members of the Executive Board and chairs the Association for one year with the right to be
re-elected in the next meeting. The General Conference of the 22 member states that will take place in Tirana during September will focus on current electoral issues in the region and namely the increase of the voters’ turn-out, awareness of the young voters and at the request of Mr. Celibashi, the Executive Board decided to include the issue of the financing of political parties during the electoral campaigns.

Mr. Celibashi’ s Presidency will include the management of the activity of the whole association, negotiations with the Council of Europe and Venice Commission and the supervision of the work of the Secretariat, which is based in Budapest, Hungary. The term won by the CEC chairman is valid for at least a one-year period with the right to be re-elected by the Executive Board.

The CEC reports to the Albanian Parliament

[02. 04. 2004] The Central Elections Commission submitted on Thursday its annual 2003 report on the activity of the CEC. The chairman of the Commission, Mr. Ilirjan Celibashi, read the report to the members of the parliament and then answered the questions asked.

The parliament session then went on with the speeches of the parliament members. On behalf of the Central Elections Commission, Celibashi called on to the MP-s to make the required changes to the Electoral Code as soon as possible in order to fully meet the recommendations of OSCE/ODIHR report on the local government elections of 2003.

Click here to read the report. [PDF 699KB]