The latest judgment of the Administrative Court by which is annulled the decision of Monstat not to submit the information to the Board of Inquiry to explore the affair “Snapshot”, is an additional evidence that state institutions actively obstructed investigation of electoral abuses in order to successfully conceal specific crimes.
Montenegrin Monstat is one of the many institutions which during the investigation of the affair “Snapshot” concealed information from the Board of Inquiry, and this is the second decision of Monstat that fell before the Administrative Court.
In this particular case, the verdict overruled the decision of Monstat that prohibits to the members of the Board of Inquiry access to databases about adults who live on the territory of Montenegro, about those who do not live on the territory of the state, as well as to the electronic databases on population list from 2011.
These data were needed to the Board of Inquiry to verify suspicions that the comparison between the voters list and census show that in some municipalities there are more voters than census recorded adult citizens. That is the situation which could not be possible unless in the case of illegal enrollment in the voters register.
MANS also earlier pointed on the problem with voters lists, a huge number of so-called phantom voters, and the problem of chronic lack of political will within the Ministry of Interior to address this issue. In addition to obvious abuses of public funds and party employment as a form of pressure on the free electoral will, manipulation of voters lists are additional tools used to alter election results for years, and open a huge space for suspicion in regularity of the electoral process in Montenegro.
Because of such situations where state institutions deliberately and in organized way work to conceal information which could indicate the existence of electoral corruption, MANS advocated for establishment of higher control in the part of the application of electoral legislation.
After being suspended a good part of the Law on Financing Political Parties which restricted mechanisms of abuses of state money for political purposes, the inability of the Parliament to step behind its own conclusion using votes of the members, and form the body which would deal with monitoring of election laws is another proof that there is still no enough of political will to make election in Montenegro fair and democratic.
MANS this way invites Ranka Krivokapica as the President of the Parliament of Montengro and until recently the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE to without delay suggest a model through which would be ensured an obviously much needed control of the implementation of election legislation, and to make concrete steps to restore public confidence in the electoral process in Montenegro.
MANS
