Without fair elections civic Montenegro has no chance

Although all opposition parties, as well as citizens at the recent big protest in Podgorica, are demanding the urgent calling of extraordinary parliamentary elections as a way out of the deep political crisis, there are no elementary conditions in Montenegro for the organisation of fair elections, which would prevent the misuse of state funds, the presence of double voters from the region, especially from Serbia, as well as the legally prohibited financing of political parties from abroad, Pobjeda’s analysis shows.

The key preconditions that should be agreed upon before the snap elections are: the formation of an electoral confidence government on a parity principle similar to the one of 2016, the cleaning of the electoral list of duplicate voters, the control of public finances, the stopping of illegal huge social benefits and the blocking of additional partisan recruitment in the election year, especially in the state-owned energy companies with the announced systematisation.

Extraordinary national elections are also impossible without a functioning Constitutional Court, because without it – in the unlikely event of constitutional appeals – the National Electoral Commission would not be able to announce the final results of the elections.

This means, in effect, that it would then not be possible to enter into the process of first constituting a new Assembly and then a government.

DOUBLE VOTERS A KEY PROBLEM

A key problem for the pro-European parties, as well as for the validity of the electoral process, is the existence of double voters, i.e. voters who are registered in the electoral roll of a country in the region in addition to the Montenegrin electoral roll.

Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, citing the protection of personal data, have refused to cooperate with Montenegro on this problem, while the Montenegrin MUP, which is responsible for the supervision of the electoral roll, shows no intention of resolving this pressing problem, citing a controversial instruction from the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data?!

CEMI estimates that there are potentially between 50,000 and 80,000 double voters in Serbia alone. The figure in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Republika Srpska, is considerably lower, but ranges up to a few thousand. According to Pobjeda, the Ministry of the Interior has concrete evidence of at least 3 500 double-registered voters, but the Serbian Ministry of the Interior has not responded positively to requests for verification of these persons. The government of Aleksandar Vučić clearly does not want to let one of the instruments of influence on political developments in Montenegro get out of hand.

The alarming situation of double voters is also evidenced by the data from the field during the last local elections, which show that a large number of voters from the Serbian territory entered the Dobrakovo border crossing point on the day of the elections. According to the M portal, they were received by the priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church with the voters’ lists and sent to their destination.

Analyses of the elections in Podgorica also point to a sudden influx of voters from abroad between 6 pm and 7 pm, which many analysts believe was the result of the organised bringing in of “double voters”, whose travel expenses were paid by the government parties of the old parliamentary majority.

In its last report for 2022, the European Commission concluded that no progress had been made on electoral reform. The issue of double voters is particularly controversial.

There is no comprehensive audit to increase public confidence in the electoral roll, for example by conducting field tests. It is urgent that the competent authorities thoroughly investigate the allegations made so far of double voter registration in one or more countries in the region, according to the European Commission’s 2022 Report.

The existence of tens of thousands of voters with dual residence has called into question the regularity of past local elections and the upcoming national and presidential elections.

FUNDING FROM ABROAD

Figures recently released by the State Department show that Putin’s Moscow has “funnelled” some €300 million through various channels, most importantly Belgrade, to influence political developments over the past decade.

It is not known how much of this money has been invested in pro-Serb and pro-Russian parties, organisations and various associations of “Russian-Serbian-Montenegrin friendship” operating in Montenegro. During his trial for attempted terrorism in 2016, the then Chief Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnić, based on intelligence from foreign services and the Montenegrin security sector, handled as much as €15 million in cash that entered Montenegro a month before the October 2016 elections.

After the change of power in 2020, the door to external funding was wide open, as was best seen during the “Battle for Nikšić”, the local elections in 2021, when Aleksandar Vučić’s confidants not only campaigned but also logistically supported the Democratic Front-led coalition.

In the recently concluded local elections, the same people who have been trying hard to help political allies in Montenegro, such as Vlada Mandić or Šijan, were the ones who did it. The case of the Serbian businessman Dejan Slijepcevic, who flew into Podgorica on election day and was found by police officers with “only” €20,000 in cash, is just one indication of how difficult it is to break through the channels of money flowing in from abroad.

Interestingly, neither the Montenegrin MUP nor the Special Prosecutor’s Office, which is responsible for sanctioning illegalities in the electoral process, has responded with criminal charges, nor has there been any record of investigations in a number of cases.

These are not the only obstacles to the organisation of fair elections in Montenegro: the use of money from the state budget is a separate story.

CONTROL OF PUBLIC MONEY

Pro-European parties, through the Government of Confidence, should continue to pay due attention to the control of public finances in an election year. This is a problem that gives the parties of the old parliamentary majority a huge institutional advantage.

Thus, according to MANS, the budget rebalancing hides spending increases of around €16 million, which could influence voters in the pre-election campaign.

The government is proposing the budget rebalancing on the grounds that it corrects the effects of the Europe Now programme. However, it foresees additional employment of just over €2.7 million, payments to natural and legal persons of €4.5 million and an increase in the budget reserve of almost €9 million, for which no justification has been given in the description of the rebalance – according to the MANS analysis.

The budget does not explain the increase in costs that increase the number of employees or persons engaged in the election campaign, totalling just over €2.7 million, with a net remuneration of almost €900 thousand, employment contracts of just over €700 thousand, other compensation of around €600 thousand and consultancy services of just over €500,000.

That an unequal electoral race is being prepared is also evidenced by the fact that in the new budget for 2023, the government has provided an additional €45 million for social welfare, €35 million for higher pensions and €67 million for wage increases, i.e. all citizens’ money. And this in an election year.

PARTY RECRUITMENT

The government’s electoral confidence mechanisms also need to control massive party recruitment, which has a significant impact on the electoral outcome under the familiar one-employee, four-vote system.

According to the Ministry of Capital Investment, in the last two years alone, 1.417 workers, mostly party activists and sympathisers, have been newly recruited in energy companies. These figures are questionable because they are inflated and significantly higher, as according to MANS, 490 workers were newly employed in the coal mine alone, and according to unofficial figures, as many as 1.000 In the report to the government, this figure was corrected to 366, even though the contracts for the new employees were typed in the nights before the local elections.

New systematizations are being prepared in EPCG as well as CEDIS, where more than 1,000 new jobs are expected to be employed. The new systematization is foreseen in the Ministry of Interior and the Police Directorate, where at least 2,500 new jobs are planned.

This means, in effect, that the parties of the parliamentary majority will enter the new electoral cycle with thousands of newly recruited activists and sympathisers, so that the parties of the European bloc will find it difficult to compete without control over this process, i.e. a losing battle in advance.

The pro-European bloc will also be handicapped by the changes in the ANB, which, through successful campaigns before the local elections and on the day of the elections, has prevented the introduction of a large amount of money suspected of being used to buy votes.

HOW TO GET AN AGREEMENT

Therefore, in addition to institutional and extra-institutional pressures to hold snap parliamentary elections, the Montenegrin people’s fight for fair electoral conditions is urgent.

To enter an electoral race in which legal procedures will be systematically violated, without a response from the institutions and without a functioning Constitutional Court, is to accept the continuation of political and legal anarchy.

Therefore, when demands are made, when there is real political pressure, it is necessary to think – not just about overthrowing a government that is not acting in the interests of Montenegro – but about creating the conditions for elections to be fair, true, an expression of the will of the people.

Otherwise, Montenegro will remain a captive state./Pobjeda