On the occasion of the article "Why all the elections in one day and the immediate election of the president of the municipalities?!", by Maraš Dukaj, Vijesti, 3 January 1.
In the ND “Vijesti” of January 3, 2025, an author's text by the Minister of Public Administration Maraš Dukaj was published under the title: “Why all elections in one day and direct election of municipal presidents?!” with proposals for, as he states, the improvement of local self-government. The title of the text, emphasized with two punctuation marks (?!), clearly indicates that the author is moving on uncertain ground and that he himself is not convinced of the meaning and sustainability of his proposals, regardless of the fact that he extensively explained them with well-known phrases about democratic and socially beneficial solutions. The position on their reform character is supported by the claim that he secured the support of citizens and European partners.
I must say that I have not noticed any significant public activity regarding consultations with citizens and their support for such ideas, but I will take the minister's word for it because I do not closely follow the activities of the Government and the Ministry of Public Administration, which, I hope, will not be taken as a big sin. On the other hand, the support of our European partners in legislation has so far been limited to the imposition of the so-called European standards that our managers uncritically accepted (read: copied), with results that were most often destructive to the organization and functioning of institutions. However, this is a broader topic that certainly deserves special attention, and for this opportunity, as far as I am concerned, I would kindly thank them for their help so far and prefer to rely on the methodology left to us by Valtazar Bogišić, about which our managers, to my great pity, they have no idea.
At the end of the text, the minister invited everyone who thinks his initiative is good to write about this topic and possible solutions. He is obviously not sure of the support, so he is publicly calling for the proposed reforms to be adopted. Although I do not belong to the group invited, I hope that the minister, and those who support such ideas, will not take it as a bad thing that I am advertising with the intention of pointing out the failure of such "reform" with the utmost good intentions.
Let me cut to the chase.
The minister proposes that local self-government be reformed by:
- all local elections to be held on the same day i
- presidents of local self-governments to be elected directly.
Holding elections on the same day in all municipalities is not a reform in itself. It's a technical issue and I don't see how it would strengthen democracy compared to a situation where elections are held at different times. But let's face it, it's useful. The minister remained obliged to answer several questions related to the implementation of this proposal.
First, he is aware that the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament must be changed, which implies two-thirds support in the Assembly of Montenegro. How will they convince the politicians, whose parties make up the local government (eg in Podgorica or Berane) that, for the sake of some great democratic progress, it is important that their mandates be shortened by force of law? How will the mandate of the Kotor or Budva municipal assemblies be shortened when they are not even constituted yet (and when they will be, we don't know). There is no need to talk about Šavnik. And, in the end, by which convenings of local assemblies would the mandate be shortened (those held before the elections or those that were elected but not yet formally constituted)?
However, let's accept that the presented and some other legal dilemmas are successfully resolved, the law is adopted and elections are called on the same day. The key question that the minister did not even try to answer remains - who guarantees that all local assemblies will be constituted and function in full term? What if in one of the municipalities, after the elections, the local government is not formed or it is formed and political disagreements arise, which again lead to the shortening of the mandate or the dissolution of the assembly (such as Cetinje in 2013, Gusinje in 2016, Budva in 2020 and 2024, Tivat 2022, Podgorica 2024, Berane 2024)? Are we going to change the law again and shorten the mandate of all local assemblies just to implement the reform ideas of Minister Dukaj at any cost?
On the other hand, the direct election of municipal presidents has only one drawback. What if the elected president of the municipality (mayor) does not have support in the assembly? In that case, he will propose decisions, other acts and personnel decisions that the councilors will not adopt, or some parliamentary majority will make decisions that the president will not want to apply because they are not part of his program. That's the system block. How this improves local self-government and develops democracy, I admit, is not clear to me.
None of what I said is the product of any special knowledge and thinking. Elections in one day, proposed by Minister Dukaj as a reform innovation and progress of democracy, already existed in our practice in 2006. However, political instability arose very quickly in certain municipalities, so the Government was forced to introduce a temporary administration (the signatory of this text was part of the temporary administration in Podgorica for 3 months). In recent years, such a practice is apparently turning into a rule. In support of this are the legal decisions on elections in one day from 2022, which the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional in the same year.
Experience shows that each municipality is a story for itself and that local self-government cannot be standardized. Moreover, I think it is precisely anti-democratic to bring political instability to municipalities under the pretext of rationality and economy.
The direct election of municipal presidents was part of the practice in the period from 2003 to 2009, so it was abandoned because it became obvious that it carries the potential of blocking the functioning of municipalities when the president does not have the support of the majority in the municipal assembly.
Minister Dukaj was a young man at the time when these models were applied in Montenegro and I am sure that he was not interested in the functioning of public administration and local self-government. Professionally, this matter is not close to him because he completed his teacher studies and master's degree in school psychology, and I suspect that his work in the municipality of Tuzi helped him to see all the complexity and aspects of the functioning of public administration and local self-government. Two years as a minister is not enough for someone who is not professionally close to this matter to get into all the details of the complex and sensitive system managed by Minister Dukaj. Therefore, I do not hold much against him for proposing such things without sufficient knowledge and verification. However, he has advisers who must be expert and experienced (unless they are party-elected) and who should have reminded him of past practice, pointed out the possible consequences and helped him think through the solutions well before announcing them publicly, especially if they were already were in use, so they were rejected as unenforceable or harmful to the functioning of institutions and systems.
Let me remind Minister Dukaj, as well as his colleagues from the Government of Montenegro, as well as everyone who is thinking about organizing and reforming state institutions, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's advice that, like a good architect, before starting design and construction, carefully study the ground and examine whether will withstand the house he intends to build, so a good legislator, before passing a law, examines the relations in society well so that the law will be accepted and applied. It should also be said that Valtazar Bogišić, before he wrote his famous General Property Code for the Principality of Montenegro, devoted many years to the study of social, economic, family and other relations, so his work is still a source of pride for our legal tradition, and even and a model for European legislation. It's a pity that nobody looks up to Bogišić.
To conclude, the proposals presented by Minister Dukaj are nothing new: they are neither reformist nor represent democratic progress. They are a recycling of something that was already in practice and turned out to be bad.
That's why I suggest to Minister Dukaj that he avoids a job for which he is clearly not up to the task or, if he is to be minister, that he learns from the mistakes of his predecessors, immediately replaces the advisory team and gather around him people of expertise and professional integrity who know the subject and who will not be up to him. but helping it to be successful.
Bonus video:
