MANS invites the President of the Parliament of Montenegro Ranko Krivokapic to personally suggest a mode which he believes is the best and would provide that the Montenegrin Parliament take an active part in the supervision of implementation of electoral legislation in order to build confidence in electoral process, which is one of key priorities of Montenegro in the process of EU integration.
The Parliament of Montenegro yesterday by the vote of ruling parties refused to create temporary working body which would deal with the supervision of the implementation of electoral legislation, which the Parliament violated own conclusions by which was obligated to establish such body. Moreover, in this way the Parliament is institutionally excommunicated from the process of establishing confidence in the electoral process, since no working body has direct authority for that procedure.
It is not a surprise that the members of the Parliament from the DPS yesterday voted against the decision for the creation of this body, knowing the fact that the officials of that party drasticaly violated Montenegrin laws in order to obtain votes for their party which was proven in the affair “Snapshot” and as well in other cases of vote buying by the state money or through the process of employment and the purchase of ID cards. Moreover, the brutal abuses, which the DPS using institutions and state media tried to cover up, were recorded and on election day, when MANS’s observers registered over 800 different irregularities.
Although the Municipal and State Election Commission, and later the Constitutional Court, by party voting rejected complaints by MANS, it is clear that the fight against electoral abuses is something on which the EU insists, and the reason why that question is positioned high on the scale of Montenegrin accession to the European Union, and from the highest addresses in Brussels is requested suspicions removal of irregularity of the elections.
Therefore, it was unexpected the decision of the members of the SDP to be abstained during voting and thus lead to the fact that the mentioned body is not established, since representatives of that party also pointed to a number of electoral irregularities.
Not long time ago the president of the political council of the SDP and Police Minister Jusuf Kalamperovic explained how the DPS violets laws in order to achieve better election results – “It is simplified: they steal, bribe, and so on. There is that. I do not claim that does not exist. That happens in a significant number”, said Kalapmerovic then. Beside Kalamperovic, on pre-election and election irregularities pointed and other high officials of the SDP including and his president Ranko Krivokapic.
At a meeting that MANS had with the President of the Parliament and SDP Ranko Krivokapic, shortly after the elections, we understood that he has political will that Montenegrin Parliament is actively involved in the procedure for monitoring the implementation of electoral legislation, its improvement and overall building confidence in the electoral process.
At that meeting, MANS expressed willingness to offer, to parliamentary working body which would deal with this issue, all documentation on pre-election and election irregularities that we have obtained, and to respond to every possible call of that working body to provide additional information and suggestions.
For that reason MANS invites Krivokapic to urgently, as a President of the Montenegrin Parliament, suggest a model of parliamentary supervision over the implementation of electoral legislation in order for the Parliament of Montenegro to have an active role in building citizens’ confidence in the electoral process, actually in meeting one of the key priorities that Brussels placed in front of Montenegro.
We invite the President of the Parliament not to fear of the media lynch and ordered filthy campaigns which state and private media close to the DPS carry against those who seek elections to be fair and democratic, but to his duty to fulfill as soon as possible in order to start with specific work in the field of election legislation.
What is indisputable is that there is a huge need for increased control of the application of electoral legislation, and because of the affair “Snapshot” and what happened during the last local elections, public confidence in the legality of the election process almost does not exist.
That is an additional argument in favor of the fact that in Montenegro is urgently needed to establish a basic rule of law in election process, so no one would be able in the future to misuse the state and para-state structures for vote buying, and for covering criminal offenses against the rights of citizens to vote independently and freely on the elections.
MANS
