Executive Director of the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector (MANS), Vanja Ćalović Marković, said in an interview with “Dan” that it was unacceptable for the government to amend electoral laws on its own and set electoral rules for itself. She soon expects pressure from the international community to continue dialogue on amendments to electoral legislation, which would make everyone happy, not just the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS).
I am sure there will be international pressure because elections are a crucial issue. It is only a question when it will start, but I expect that there will be pressure to start a dialogue because we are a paralyzed state, in which there is no elementary dialogue about anything, and the elections are getting closer – Ćalović Marković pointed out.
She reminded that at the December session of the Parliament, DPS proposed and, with its coalition partners, adopted amendments to key electoral laws – the Law on Financing of Political Entities, the Law on Territorial Organization and the Law on Voters List. As she emphasized, they amended all those electoral laws that did not require a two-thirds majority.
The very process of drafting these laws has already been curtailed on several grounds; the process started with one political structure – Democratic Front, continued with another political structure – Democrats, with the participation of some other minor political parties, but at no point did we have a dialogue of really everyone involved in the election process, or even all key actors to reach a compromise; this parliamentary working group, i.e. this authority did not organize a public hearing, did not allow all those who were not really involved in the process to comment, thus the very process of drafting this legislation, and its later adoption, did not have elemental legitimacy. It is unacceptable in any state for the government to amend electoral laws on its own and set electoral rules for itself, especially in the country where first reaction by the President Milo Đukanović to the “Envelope” affair was the announcement that they would change laws and increase the donations citizens can give to political parties, and it was after we caught the same political party in a concrete attempt to forge documentation of their donations. I am particularly reminding of the Konik affair, where the poorest people gave the maximum amount of money, almost the same day, as well as the affair involving high-ranking DPS officials who paid the maximum amounts in the same bank, the same branch, at the same day. Since we published this and pointed to their practice, DPS is now finding ways to make it easier for them to pursue their practice in the future, that is, that fewer individuals can pay larger sums which would make it easier for them to hide the origin of money. This practice is therefore completely unacceptable. Đukanović’s first reaction was: We broke the law, right? Well, now we are going to make a law that suits us so we have less chance of breaking it. It is a classic capture of the state – Ćalović Marković said.
In her words, it is unacceptable for the ones who are caught stealing to change the electoral rules themselves so that they can facilitate the theft in the future.
This is something we have not seen in our country yet. So far, they have always been trying to come to an agreement in some way. I think the only solution is, the only realistic thing is for these laws to be reconsidered – Ćalović Marković said.
She added that there must be a way to regulate the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns so that they capture corruption rather than enable it, i.e. legalize it.
I expect that the opposition will request that, regardless of their different political views. I do not think it is in anyone’s interest to ensure that a political entity alone regulates how everyone will be funded. That bare minimum must be reached – to address the issue of elections funding, whether the way DPS alone decided and prescribed the rules to itself, or others will have their saying as well – Ćalović Marković was clear.
In her opinion, the big question is whether there will be a boycott of the election or, in the meantime, there will be talks about changes to the electoral rules.
The fact is that the electoral rules are greatly disrupted by the DPS’ unilateral decision in a totally illegitimate procedure. What is basic and must be addressed is when we will go back to discussing these electoral rules. I am sure that there will be pressure from the international community regarding this, since OSCE and ODHIR recommendations have not been respected at all. In addition, we do not know what DPS wrote in that legislation, and more importantly, how DPS, that is, its captured institutions, will interpret it all – Ćalović Marković said.
According to her, if there is no agreement on electoral rules, there will be no new elections under old rules, but new elections under new rules, which have never been worse.
We will have elections worse than ever in terms of the legitimacy of the legal framework, since so far, when electoral legislation was changing, we always had some compromise. I cannot remember ever amending a law without it being the result of some compromise. DPS did something similar with the 2017 Law on Voters List Act, while the opposition boycotted the parliament, but those amendments were minor, while this now is adoption of a completely new law. You propose it yourself, you adopt it yourself. They are trying to explain that they gained some legitimacy by having Democrats participate in the process, as well as SDP and some other minor opposition parties, but this is completely meaningless, because to say that someone participated in the process means nothing if they did not participate in the final joint agreement. No one agreed on this, instead, DPS got what suited them from the process, and did not propose what did not suit them. It is too transparent for anyone to be deceived – Ćalović Marković concluded.
Vanja Ćalović Marković points out that it is still unknown what is written in the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns because it was not published in the Official Gazette.
This was agreed by DPS at committee meetings and put into the procedure, but we do not know what happened in the meantime. We have a situation where the key law defining something that DPS itself claimed to be a high-scale affair – financing of political parties (of course, they referred to their opponents, while I refer to them as well) was passed without the opposition, whereby the debate on the law lasted only 35 minutes. Does not that say enough about the seriousness of that law? Moreover, those were not amendments to the law, they did not even amend it, instead, they passed entirely new law, which was discussed for only 35 minutes. This speaks volumes about the legitimacy of the procedure itself and that it should not be acceptable – Ćalović Marković said.
