Voting of the Macedonian Diaspora in the Parliamentary Elections in Republic of Macedonia

Book excerpt: Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Region: Southeastern Europe, grade: 10, , course: World Studies, language: English, abstract: Voting abroad is a topic which is not sufficiently analysed and covered in the literature, but still it is of great importance in relation to the equality of the right to vote for the citizens of a certain state, regardless where they reside. By possessing the citizenship, each citizen acquires rights and duties toward the state of citizenship, and has guaranteed freedom to exercise these rights and duties, among which is the right to vote. Republic of Macedonia as newly independent state whose political system is based on democratic principles, decided to include the Macedonian migrants (diaspora) into the election process by adopting the Law on Amending the Election Code in 2008, thus joining the group of 115 states in the world which enfranchised the diaspora. In this master’s thesis the subject of analysis is the external voting of the Macedonian diaspora, by emphasizing the five principles of equality, universality, freedom, secrecy and directness of the right to vote of Macedonian citizens who reside abroad. The analysis is conducted by presenting the legal acts and regulations in the area of election policy of Republic of Macedonia, which shows that legally some of the five democratic principles of suffrage are disrupted.