MANS from the Parliamentary working group for drafting the Law on Financing of Political Parties and the decision on the establishment of a temporary committee to monitor the implementation of the election law requested not to allow participation in the work of that body, in the same way as we were able in the Working Group to build confidence in the electoral process, which in the beginning of this year completed its work.
Cooperation between parliamentarians and NGO sector within the Working group to build confidence in the electoral process was positively assessed from all parties in the Montenegrin society, and also international community, which recognized this kind of work as positive step forward in current Montenegrin practice, so we want to believe that and this time the representatives of the NGO sector will be able to participate in the Working group and ti by their comments and suggestions improve and texts subjects of operation of the Working group in the Parliament of Montenegro. That is the only way to get all the knowledge and experience from this area concentrate in one place and to result in the adoption of the highest quality legal solutions which fit the needs of Montenegro.
However, the behavior of the Members of the Parliament from the DPS at yesterday’s meeting showed that the representatives of this party are apparently feared from the participation of NGO sector in the Working group, because they are aware of the fact that the adoption of our proposals would put an end to several years of misuses of public funds which perfectly fitted the officials of this party and which seems to want to legalize by the new legal texts. About this maybe the best speaks the fact that the meetings of the Working group will be held away from the public eyes, which greatly facilitates the position of the ruling party to try to sneak inadequate legal solutions which would be used to legalize the activities from the scandal “Snapshot”, or to try to discredit the work of this body, as the Law on the financing of political parties would not be adopted in the end.
That the ruling party still does not have a serious approach in the Working group the best show the fact that the Government, which is ruled by this party, still has not submitted to the Parliament the Draft of the Law on financing political parties, even though that was requested from it at the meeting of the Working group a week ago, so the process of adoption of law would be finalized by the end of this month, but it is not clear when the Government would do that. That is just on of many indications that there is still no willingness to stop with the election scandals so Montenegrin citizens can receive fair and honest election process, which is free of any suspicion of illegal conduct.
The scope of the current misuse of public funds for the electoral results of the ruling party, best is seen in the statements of its highest officials from the scandal “Snapshot”, and based on the research conducted by MANS in the past several years, by which we documented dozens of cases of serious abuses, of which some are so obvious that even our prosecution could not keep its eyes closed, but had to initiate proceedings. Because of that it is necessary for Montenegro to get as soon as possible a legal frame to prevent and punish such behavior, and which will help citizens to build confidence in the electoral process.
We want to believe that the majority in the Working group would have the power to ensure that this body works transparently and in the interest of all citizens, and that this time the work of Working group will lead to building trust in the electoral process, which is why we are fully ready to our information, knowledge, capabilities, and experience make available to the working group in order to reach the best solutions. We hope that the Working group will soon start with specific work, and will allow us to participate in its work in order to make members of the parliament familiar with all irregularities that we have discovered so far through implemented investigations, and to offer them adequate legal solutions in order to prevent those cases to happen in the future.
Vuk Maras
Director of Monitoring Program
