Elections in Montenegro were peaceful, character and scope of irregularities have not jeopardized regularity of the overall election process and all actors of the election process have accepted results. All this makes these elections unique in the history of Montenegro, Center for Monitoring and Research (CeMI) said.
This organization held a press conference today and presented Report on preliminary conclusions and findings “Civil observation of elections – Parliamentary and local elections in Montenegro 2020”.
President of the Administrative board of CeMI, Mr Zlatko Vujović, said that election process was marked by omissions of SEC, numerous irregularities in the work of electoral committees and strong functionary campaign that had made border between the country and governing parties almost invisible.
“Character and scope of irregularities have not jeopardized regularity of the overall election process and all actors of the election process have accepted results. Result faithfully reflects citizens’ free election will”, Mr Vujović said.
Period before the elections was marked by acts of violence against members of national minorities.
“Some facilities of the party that lost the majority were demolished and vehicle of the public service of RTCG was damaged”, Mr Vujović said.
He harshly condemned acts of violence and expressed his concern.
“We praise reactions of opposition parties and their appeals to stop public celebrations, we support Mr Dritan Abazović’s reaction but we still think that additional responsibility of the leaders of the governing majority is required”, Mr Vujović pointed out.
He said that elections had been held in the amended legislative framework and added that some recommendations of the Venice Commission, OSCE ODIHR mission and national observation organizations hadn’t been respected.
Program director of CeMI, Mr Ivan Vukčević, said that all members of the working team had been engaged in the activities of SEC in the last phase of the election process. All election lists had named their representatives, which reinforced the legitimacy in the decision-making process.
CeMI observers have established that training of members of committees had not been equal.
“Mechanism to ensure that all members of committees attended online training haven’t been provided. Also, many members of the committee requested material in print while some presidents of municipal committees have launched initiative to carry out additional training for the members of electoral committees”, Mr Vukčević said.
“SEC established and published preliminary results of the elections in accordance with the lawful deadline. Results were established without votes of the members of Commission”, Mr Vukčević said.
Media analyst in CeMI, Ms Milica Zrnović, said that media reporting rules of political parties “were respected”. There were no political contents that emphasized symbols or slogans of political parties.
“Increased political activity on social media was noted on Saturday, 29 August. Political parties posted a total of 98 contents”, Ms Zrnović said.
The “Civil observation of elections – Parliamentary and local elections in Montenegro 2020” project was financially supported by British Embassy in Podgorica, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Netherlands and Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in Belgrade.
