(Podgorica, 8 April 2013) – Today MANS pressed charges against the Minister of Internal Affairs Rasko Konjevic, alleging that he abused his position by failing to adopt measures necessary for the removal of irregularities in the Electoral List prepared for Montenegro’s presidential elections.
In failing to undertake such measures, we allege that Konjevic violated the law and allowed a number of citizens the right to vote, while denying this right to others, all for the purposes of influencing the election results (thereby harming the integrity of the whole process).
On the eve of the elections both presidential candidates submitted some 7,000 complaints to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), in order to verify the numerous irregularities to be found in the Central Electoral List.
MANS found that 3,300 individuals younger than 40, who previously had the right to vote, were erased from the Electoral list. Similarly, some 6,200 new voters older than 60 were registered to vote, while some 1,500 voters seem to have been registered twice.
Additionally, in the period since the October 2012 parliamentary election, until 27 March 2013, nearly 4,800 new voters were registered on the basis of having moved to a new location, while another 3,800 were removed from the list on the basis of moving from their previous address.
This means that 1,600 voters more were registered than were removed from the Electoral List, while at the same time the Law on Electoral Lists clearly stipulates that no one can be registered in the list of another municipality if they haven’t been previously removed from the list of their original municipality (thus the number of those registered and removed should have been the same.
There is sufficient reason to believe that the Central Electoral List also continued to contain a number of duplicate registered voters, with the clear intention of influencing the election results to benefit the incumbent candidate of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS).
Minister Konjevic has stated that the MUP is unable to review within 48 hours all 7000 complaints that his ministry received from the presidential candidates. In doing so, he publicly asserted that he will not respect the law and that he won’t undertake his legally mandated duties within the stipulated deadlines, admitting that he is aware that he is deliberately violating the law by doing so.
The public statements by the accused, Konjevic, demonstrate that he acted with intent, that he knew that by failing to carry out his public duties he was violating the law, that he was illegally allowing some individuals to vote while illegally denying this right to others, and that in doing so he would be intentionally violating the rights of some.
Such behaviour by the Minister of Internal Affairs and the flagrant violation of the laws and regulations is particularly serious in light of the recent audio-recordings that were released of a DPS strategy session. On these recordings one can here the political director of the ruling party, Branimir Gvozdenovic, suggesting that the Electoral Lists must be tailored in a fashion that would benefit the interests of the DPS.
