(Podgorica, September 10. 2013.) – Answer from the Supreme Prosecutor’s office on hundreds of pages of evidence of political corruption and misuse state resources during the previous election, is shameful, offensive to common sense and completely disgraceful for the address that is coming from. All this was not enough for Montenegrin prosecutor’s office to officially determine that during the previous election votes were brutally bought with insolent abuse of public money for political purpose.
Thus, in the information that prosecution submitted to the Parliament, Veselin Vuckovic, Acting Chief in the Supreme Prosecutor’s office, stated that none of the senior officials of the ruling party has not violated any law of this land, so their actions can be considered as legitimate, even though the whole Montenegro could be assured, using own ears and eyes, in all that was done right before the previous parliamentary and presidential elections.
With this behavior Vuckovic directly supports the same officials of DPS to continue with aggressive violation of the law, while being completely relaxed that the Montenegrin prosecution could reaction on something that obviously is political corruption and abuse of power. In Vuckovic’s interpretation is clearly legitimate to promise and to give public resources in order to achieve interests for the ruling elite, and to request money from the state budget so the better results are achieved in the field.
MANS submitted to the prosecution an enormous documentation that testified about obvious political corruption and abuse before the previous elections.
Even when we explained step by step to Vuckovic how DPS brought votes on a local level with money from the state budget, the prosecution is still hesitating to prosecute those who are responsible for political corruption.
So in the case Pljevlja the work, in large part, remained unfinished because the prosecution just noticed that the suspicion might exists that employees from the Center for Social Work abused power by, being without adequate documentation and without statutory determined procedure, offering financial assistance to citizens, ie. that using the taxpayers’ money they bought votes for DPS.
Not just that prosecution did not pressed charges against individuals who are proved to have violated the law, but as well did not engage in further investigation of who is behind the order for votes buying, on whose behalf it was done, and who is the link with DPS local board and headquarter in Podgorica.
It is unlikely that suspected individuals from the Center for Social Work in Pljevlja by their own initiative self-organized for vote buying, and and the same time not being supported by the party on whose behalf they were working.
In addition to Center for Social Work from Pljevlja, MANS informed public that in the others municipal centers unusual activities occurred in the distribution of social assistance, and doubts that those activities are carried out by the same principal as one in Pljevlja.
MANS then noticed that the dynamic of scheduled payments over the year is uneven in all monitored centers for social work, so the jumps in a total amount that is payed off, are exactly noticed in the period before, during, and after elections. It is also noticed the jump in the number of those who use financial assistance, and in some centers the jump was up to 28 time, and that is the case with the Center of Social Work in Herceg Novi. Drastic jumps were noticed in all monitored centers, including: Podgorica, Cetinje, Danilovgrad, Kolasin, Niksic, Plav, Savnik, Bijelo Polje, Mojkovac, Plav, Rozaje, Kotor, Tivat, Budva, Bar, Ulcinj, Zabljak, Berane, and Andrijevica. Of course, Vuckovic found it necessary to investigate those cases, even as an official duty, especially since he had a vote-buying scheme backgrounded by the abuse of one-time financial assistance.
All of that is not that interesting to Veselin Vuckovic, and reprsent a huge chunk for his professional and democratic capacity limited by the servility amount to the party that had placed him on that position.
Unfortunately, this shameful answer from the prosecution shows a clear intention of this institution to stay with its principals until the end, and to make sure that no mechanisms are denied for stealing votes while citizens’ money is lavishly used.
MANS
