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Voting is a democratic act of expressing the will of the citizen in a democratic society, where every citizen can use his legally guaranteed right to vote and vote for the option that he considers to be the best of his free will and conviction. During the voting, there are situations in which the electoral process is disrupted by voters, members of the election board, but also by officials, due to the fact that the members of the election board are not trained to act in situations related to security breaches and instead of trying to calm down the situation, they further escalate it, which leads to disruption of the electoral process and in certain situations, its interruption. For those reasons, additional training, even if short, for the election board related to the security aspect by professional staff would contribute to additional professionalization from the security aspect of the members of the election board, on how to act in situations related to a security breach during the electoral process (voting) and contribute to its development in a more peaceful and democratic atmosphere. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as many other state institutions, are involved in the election process on the day of the voting, but the election board are the ones who are first in contact with the voters, where there may be disturbances during the voting, therefore the need for additional security training for the members of the election board is imposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the composition of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia, there are three commissions that are responsible for different areas and are directly related to security: the most important one: The Commission for Defense and Security, as well as the Commission for Supervision over the work of the National Security Agency and the Intelligence Agency and lastly, Commission for supervision over the implementation of communications monitoring measures. The constitutional power possessed by the Parliament, as well as its role in the improvement of laws during the parliamentary procedure, is the main factor with which significant changes can be made, which would have a positive impact on the regulation of the area of security. Experts would make an additional positive contribution here, especially those who gained their experience outside the country and who would pass their positive experiences to us. We should not overlook the fact that the more developed countries have invested much more than us in the field of security, especially the EU member states that mutually exchange experiences and knowledge and when it comes to security act as one entity composed of a large number of experts. Looking at the current geopolitical movements, maintaining security in the future will be a challenge, especially for the weaker countries, which can be the target of various means that would violate their general security and thus the trust of the citizens towards the institutions. The often-emphasized meritocracy rather than partocracy as well as giving opportunity to distinguished experts and zero tolerance for mistakes and failures in the security sector would be key to success. It should be taken into consideration that positive results do not come in an instant, but security threats can come at any moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional military threats on one country from another are drastically reduced today. However, there is a trend of increasing non-conventional threats, such as: terrorism, cyber-attacks and hybrid threats, which we will talk about in greater detail. Based on the data we have available in the Republic of North Macedonia and beyond, hybrid threats are common and are becoming more frequent. Following the geopolitical movements, it is expected that hybrid threats will become more frequent in the future in our country. Such threats can cause economic losses, difficulties in the work of the public administration, problems in critical infrastructure, and loss of trust of the citizens in the state institutions. These hybrid threats can be carried out by our fellow citizens who are motivated by political agendas, often with the aim of playing with state institutions, but also by foreign countries and well-organized criminal groups. In this way, hybrid threats pose a danger to the security, stability and functioning of the country. The development of digital infrastructure has drastically changed our daily, social and economic life and is influencing the emergence of new crimes related to hybrid threats. The progress of society is closely related to the implementation of new opportunities offered by technology, and the possibility of their abuse increases accordingly, so the state needs to seriously engage in defense against hybrid threats that will be more and more present in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]