Skopje, 22 April 2024 (MIA) - The national association of citizens CIVIL - Center for Freedom will monitor the first round of the presidential elections, which will be held Wednesday, with 51 accredited observers, as well as the pre-election silence starting at midnight, CIVIL president Xhabir Derala said at a press conference on Monday.

"All of CIVIL's observers will be mobile and will visit a large number of polling stations, monitoring the wider region. They will be in continuous communication with citizens and the press center, and will be gathering information," Derala noted.

CIVIL's monitoring in the last period has shown that the campaigns for presidential and parliamentary elections started in the middle of 2023.

"One of the main features of political campaigns have been disinformation, hate speech and anti-Western narratives that are used by a number of political entities in the country as a propaganda tools to gain advantage over their opponents," said Derala.

According to him, CIVIL's monitoring records at least 100 cases daily of hate speech on social media directed at presidential candidates and their supporters.

"The political scene in the country is flooded with nationalist propaganda. This is marked with an increase in ethnic-based hate speech, and often expressions and messages that fall under the crime of spreading ethnic, religious, and racial hate. Both media and public events of political entities are marked with a sharp disparaging of political rivals, and nationalist messages and narratives," Derala stressed. ssh/sk/

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