The temporary committee for the reform of the electoral legislation should regulate the status of MPs and councilors who leave the party after the elections, as this would reduce the space for political corruption, according to the civil sector and the opposition. This, as they state, would prevent numerous cases of abuse of the constitutional norm according to which the mandate belongs to the deputy or councilor.
Danilo Kalezić from the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) points out that no one tried to solve the issue of the so-called "flyovers" even though they created problems in certain municipalities after the elections.
"Citizens vote for lists, not for individuals, and then they can abuse the position they got in the name of the party. This is how political corruption happens, as was the case in Nikšić, Podgorica or some other municipalities. The councilors abused their mandate and transferred the votes they received to another camp and an option that the citizens did not vote for. Then political corruption is inevitable", claims Kalezić.
According to the Constitution of Montenegro, a deputy has the right to vote according to his conviction and cannot be held responsible for the expressed opinion or vote. The electoral list or party, which the deputy or councilor leaves after the election, cannot replace him with another, because his parliamentary mandate ends only in case of resignation.
That constitutional right was abused, among other things, when the councilor of Positive Montenegro, Drago Đurović, secured a majority for the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in the Municipal Council of Nikšić after the 2012 elections.
A similar thing happened when Časlav Perović was expelled from Pozitivna because he supported the DPS candidate for the mayor of Budva, Lazar Rađenović, and because of the former councilor of the Democratic Front (DF) Stevan Džaković, who refused to come to the sessions of the local parliament, the government in Budva was about to be put into receivership last year.
Branka Bošnjak (DF), a member of the suspended Committee for the Reform of Electoral Legislation, believes that this parliamentary body should resolve the issue of "runaway MPs and defectors". She reminded that in every new convocation of the parliament, there are more and more "independent deputies".
"This issue should also be considered, because from mandate to mandate we have more and more MPs who defected from the club than those with whom they were on the electoral list. New parties are often formed, and they have different attitudes towards them. Let's say DPS and Social Democrats (SD) in the Podgorica parliament in the last convocation allowed the formation of the Democrats and Demos club, even though those parties were founded only after the elections, while in the state parliament this was not possible. I will not go into the reasons why someone leaves the party, because sometimes the party deviates from the programmatic principles that it stood for during the campaign, so the question arises as to who is really responsible, but the fact is that this problem must be on the table", she claims.
Representatives of Positive Montenegro asked the Working Group for Restoring Trust in the Electoral Process in 2013 to introduce the obligation to restore mandates to MPs and councilors who cease to be members of the party on whose list they entered the parliament.
Although Pozitivna claimed at the time that this would prevent political corruption, the representatives of the Working Group did not introduce a solution into the law, justifying themselves by the Constitutional norm that the deputy is the owner of his mandate.
Kalezić does not expect the issue to be addressed by the temporary committee, which should complete the changes to the election laws by September next year. That parliamentary body recently held its first session, but not all parliamentary parties participate in it.
"There is no will in the political parties to deal with that problem, and that's why we don't expect it to be one of the topics of the committee. If Montenegro is a developed democracy with institutions that can deal with political and any other type of corruption and if we have an electoral model in which citizens would vote directly for their representatives, then the MP should dispose of his mandate according to advice and convictions. Any possible deviation from the pre-election program or promises would be punished by the citizens in the next elections", believes Kalezić.
Bosniak: Open lists are a possible solution
Bosniak believes that the problem could be solved by introducing the so-called open lists where citizens would vote for politicians and not for parties. The introduction of that model has recently been requested by some parties and independent MPs.
"Then it would be known that you are truly a representative elected by the people, so your responsibility and freedom of choice is greater. There would not be so many so-called the key of deputies who often vote against their will for some decisions. With that, the decisions would be fairer and more attention would be paid to what is proposed. Open lists would represent a multiple democratic step forward, the MP would have greater autonomy, but also responsibility.
This would also create a more democratic atmosphere in the parties, where those who have a greater foothold in the people would be more respected, and the framing of the leaders would be different. The arbitrariness of the leaders would be reduced, and the work on the ground directly with the people would be more intense," she claims.
Šćepanović: Everything is open, the goal is a better law
The member of the temporary committee from the DPS, Marta Šćepanović, reminds that the improvement of the electoral environment, along with the implementation of the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, is one of the goals for which the parliamentary body was formed.
"We will open all other questions concerning the election environment. The issue concerning the mandate of deputies and councilors is an integral part of the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament. We will discuss this law with the intention of improving it in the context of the election environment. "Let's allow all participants in the work of the Committee to agree on the best solutions regarding the details of this and other legal solutions," she said.
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