ProGlas initiative: Ministry of Internal Affairs involved in electoral 'systemic manipulation'

According to the press release, the ProGlas initiative did this based on the position that “elections are the only way to change the government in a constitutional democracy, but also expressing the belief that the massive voter response and the strengthened legitimacy of representative bodies are more important than the proven arsenal of electoral irregularities.”

“Numerous assessments by foreign observers, but above all comprehensive reports by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), on mass and systemic anomalies in the election process showed, however, that our belief was unfounded. The scale of electoral engineering, based on the organised migration of voters, is so great that it can be said without hesitation that the results of the parliamentary, regional and local elections do not express the free will of the citizens, the initiative said.

They emphasised as a “special concern” the fact that at the “the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which illegally assigned persons residence in places where the center of their life activities is clearly not located, is at the centre of this systemic electoral manipulation” as well as the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, which intervened in voter lists without a valid legal basis and thus directly influenced the rewriting of the citizens' electoral will.

“When competent institutions, above all prosecutors, are silent on numerous verified electoral frauds, it should not be surprising that citizens see street protests and demonstrations as the most effective way to protect their constitutional electoral rights,” said the initiative.