(Podgorica, 4 April 2013) – Minister of Internal Affairs Rasko Konjevic is now demanding that someone else explain to him how to implement a law that his ministry drafted, while bragging that Montenegro has excellent laws that serve to regulate elections and the ‘cleanest’ Electoral Lists in the region, adding to this that there have been no complaints on this account. Such an attitude by the Ministry is incomprehensible, since they are the ones who drafted a restrictive law that prevents third parties from reporting irregularities and defines unrealistically short deadlines for reviewing the final Electoral List, including for inspector oversight.
Thanks to such a law, we needed several days since the finalizations of the Electoral list to obtain the eventual version of the database that isn’t accessible to the public, in spite of numerous ODIHR recommendations. Once established, we analyzed hundreds of thousands of entries and found several possible irregularities. We prepared initiatives for both presidential candidates, which they then submitted to the Ministry.
Therefore, MANS – an NGO with about 30 employees – was able to in only a few days highlight numerous irregularities and prepare complaints for both presidential candidates, even though this isn’t our legal obligation (nor are Montenegro’s citizens paying us for this). In the meantime, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), which employs thousands, claims that it is not in a position to implement the law.
Furthermore, the opinion of the Ministry that their findings cannot influence the Electoral List is totally incomprehensible. The only mechanism that the existing Law foresees at the moment is MUP oversight. Such oversight shouldn’t be carried out for the sake of itself, but must be undertaken in order to eliminate irregularities in the Electoral List and ensure that non-existent voters be removed from the list. It should also be working on ensuring that citizens whose names were illegally removed from the list be reinstated. Otherwise, the oversight role that the law grants to the MUP would be farcical, which is apparently the type of role that Konjevic is trying to secure for his ministry.
Not only would the Ministry have to correct the ‘mistakes’ in the current list, but it would also have to make accountable those responsible for these irregularities. Any truly serious minister would forward examples of such irregularities to the police, which is a sub-unit of the MUP, in order to arrest those individuals responsible for falsifying the data in the Electoral Lists and in other ways violating the citizens’ right to vote. Instead, Minister Konjevic has decided to issue random proclamations, since he’s not ready to do his job in a legal and professional manner in order to ensure that only those who have the right to vote actually are able to vote in these elections.
With this attitude Konjevic may bring into question the legitimacy of the elections if he continues to flagrantly violate the law. If persists in doing so, it would only be appropriate for him to resign. We believe that both presidential candidates will demand this of him, and that they won’t allow someone to belittle with their rights and those of Montenegro’s voters.
