MANS invites all citizens to vote on Sunday, fight for their votes, and do not let anyone decide for them about their future. MANS as well urges all participants in the election process to contribute election day to pass in peace and with minimal violations of procedures on polling stations. The goal of MANS is to prevent irregularities on the polling places, and if they happen to register them and report to the relevant institutions.
To monitor local elections in Podgorica, MANS accredited over 500 observers, and we expect that we are going to cover more than 90% of the electorate in the capital city. Beside standard polling stations, for the first time voting process will be monitored in the IECS, and also monitored the work of municipal and state Election Commission.
All previous election marked a huge noise that were many irregularities but in the end of the day we had a very small number for such complaint. Our colleagues from non-governmental sector, but also political parties until now have not adequately prosecute all irregularities noticed, which gave a comfortable position to the state bodies to claim that everything was all right on the elections.
Because of that, MANS will all irregularities clearly register and report to the relevant authorities to make sure that in the end of the election day we do not have the same situation and excuse for inaction of the electoral commissions.
MANS in its work and so far tried to better document cases of corruption and violations of the law, and it will be the case with the election day as well, because we want to finally establish institutional practice when it comes to processing of election irregularities, and also to give to everyone specific and solid evidence for the claims that the election process in Montenegro is burdened by numerous irregularities.
The current law brought in the situation all of those who monitor the elections that they can not report it directly, and that possibility is given only to the political parties. Because of that MANS offered to all participants in the elections to instead of us submit reports to the SEC and MEC, because we believe that it is the goal to all of us to remove all doubts in the regularity of the electoral process. That our offer accepted 4 parties, thought which MANS will submit initiatives.
We also warn that certain state institutions responsible for monitoring of election day conduct make serious obstructions, first of all the State Election Commission. Only a few days before the elections, MANS got informed that on the polling stations will not be possible to highlight information-excerpts from the Constitution which clarify the rights of citizens related to electoral process, and how they fight for them.
This decision was made despite a previous agreement with the SEC, which then claimed that there is no problem to set posters with information with citizens’ rights. Because of that MANS’s observers will set the posters anyway and enable citizens to get informed about their rights, and members of the committee then will decide themselves whether they dare to break up and remove the constitutional provisions.
However, MANS secured that all lines for reporting corruption are open during the whole day so the citizens can report to us all electoral irregularities at polling stations, and outside of them as well.
In that regard MANS once again invites all citizens to, on Sunday, pay special attention to all what is happening at the polling station and around it, and to report us all suspicious activities so we can check and further process them to the relevant institutions.
MANS will and on the election day submit criminal complaints to the police and prosecution in regard of the specific crimes for which we gather evidence because we believe that no additional excuse should be given for the police and prosecution not to prosecute all actors of political corruption.
Phone numbers to which citizens can report irregularities are 020266326, 020266327, 069446094, 067262724, and through our website and through izbori.se. Secure online platform Prijavi korupciju
In order to timely inform the public about the identified irregularities MANS will during tomorrow organize four press conferences at 11:30am, 2:30pm, 5:30pm, and 9:30pm after polls are closed. Depending on information gathered from the field, MANS will organized and special press conferences.
In addition to the press conferences, additional statistics on irregularities and other information important for the election day will also be presented as a separate press releases.
MANS will tomorrow organize monitoring of the elections so-called “live” on our website IzboriSe | Prijavi izbornu korupciju | Prati izbore where new information will be continuously posted right away, and on which will be posted all presented during the day.
For the representatives of the international media and international organizations and embassies in Podgorica, all information will ne simultaneously translated on English and posted on our website.
MANS
