The decision of the President of Montenegro to call today parliamentary elections, which are to be held on 16 October 2016, does not add to increase of confidence in the election process, as such decision was made without public counselling with institutions, which, at the moment, are not prepared to fully implement electoral legislation.
It is disputable that Mr. Vujanovic made the decision to call elections behind the curtain and that Montenegrin public and institutions in charge of implementing and overseeing the electoral process learned about it from the media. Instead, the President should have carried out public and transparent counselling with all entities that should contribute to organizing free and fair elections, and made a valid decision based on all relevant facts.
The State Election Commission, as the main body in charge of the implementation of the electoral process, is not ready for the elections, as the legal framework which defines electoral activities has not been finalized, especially in terms of inadequate by-laws. The main culprit is the president of the institution Budimir Saranovic, who has been hindering effective work of the Commission with regard to this and all other issues. Since this February, before local elections in Tivat, MANS has been trying to ensure that the SEC amend by-laws, as well as adequate implementation of the electoral process, which Mr. Saranovic has continuously ignored and hindered every possible way.
Thus, Montenegrin citizens will face new parliamentary elections with unresolved issues, as there is no legally defined procedure for defining grounds for complaint of alleged violation of voting right, despite the fact that it is the only institute to protect lawfulness of the electoral process. Therefore, the same practice from previous elections will repeat again – complaints will be resolved by political outvoting and not based on evidence, by means of majority that the ruling structure has in election management bodies, and only because there is no procedure to govern such actions.
Moreover, due to the fact that SEC’s by-laws have not been improved promptly, election management bodies will face numerous provisions that are impossible to adequately implement in practice, of which Mr. Saranovic is again primarily responsible.
Such problems could have been avoided by adopting proposed amendments of by-laws, which were drafted by the working group organized by MANS and other NGOs with representatives of parliamentary political parties. However, this will not be possible, having in mind the fact that the legal framework defining the electoral process may not be modified after the elections are called.
Equally inauspicious is the situation with the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, which should have been started implementation of activities that concern control of abuse of public resources for electoral campaigns as of today. However, there is no minimum readiness for such activities. Namely, during the late case of „Ramada“, the Agency has shown that it is not ready to protect a single whistleblower who pointed at the abuse of public funds by a party, so it is clear that it will do nothing now when it has to oversee abuses by all state and local bodies.
Finally, appointment of members of the Ministry of Interior’s coordination body for overseeing electoral legislation has been hindered by the presidents of the SEC and the Parliament, so the body is yet to begin performing its duties with regard to MoI’s monitoring of the electoral process in its full capacity. Therefore, it would be much better if the elections had been called after its complete institutionalization.
This all indicates how important it was for the President of Montenegro to have public counselling with all entities involved in the electoral process before making decision to call elections. The elections should have been called the moment there is a better probability that the institutions would be able to carry out appropriately the work they are expected to do.
Without challenging the fact that it is good to start implementing electoral actions and their oversight as soon as possible, which is ensured by calling elections, the President’s decision to do it today can be counterproductive from the point of trust in the electoral process, as we are caught in the situation when the competent institutions are not able to carry out their duties completely.
Vuk Maras, Director of the Monitoring Program
