Civil society against buying of electoral votes: the effective civil society control as a factor for conducting fair and democratic elections

The primary goal of the project was to promote integrity in the election campaigns, to mobilize civil society organizations in order to exercise effective control and monitoring over the election campaigns in view of prevention of buying of electoral votes and to increase the level of integrity of the democratic process in general. The project objectives were: 1. to formulate adequate proposals for legislative amendments designed to restrict buying of electoral votes during the upcoming elections for MPs of the National Assembly and members of the European Parliament in 2009; 2. to mobilize the civil society structures for exerting an active public pressure on state institutions in order to adopt the civil society proposals for legislative amendments and to ensure fair democratic elections. 3. to advocate for civil and political intolerance towards the issue of buying of votes through focusing public attention on the importance of this phenomenon and organizing a civil society advocacy campaign for a fair and nonbiased electoral campaign. 4. to enhance the capacity of NGOs for exercising an effective monitoring over elections and to enhance the capacity of the state institutions for effective counteraction and restriction to the practices of vote buying.