The proposed solution that the members of the State Election Commission (SEC) are not elected by a qualified, but by a simple parliamentary majority is not a path to professionalism, but to one-partyism, assessed the representative of Democratic Montenegro, Danilo Saranović.
Saranović said that the proposed solution that the SEC and municipal election commissions are no longer made up of party members is an attempt by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) to form a party body for the implementation of elections instead of a professional SEC, in order to be a "flow boiler for decades of abuses by the DPS ".
"If all the members of the election commission are not elected by a qualified, but by a simple parliamentary majority, that is, by a majority of the deputies present, that is not the path to professionalism, but to one-partyism," Šaranović told the MINA agency.
He said that the SEC organization model proposed by the Democrats ensures the fulfillment of all the recommendations of the OSCE and the standards of the Venice Commission, which were proclaimed in the "Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters".
Šaranović added that they submitted the proposed solution for the education of an independent and credible SEC with an explanation to the Committee for Electoral Reforms and its working committees.
Such a solution, as he said, completely eliminates the possibility that the DPS will once again turn the SEC into its party working body.
"In the reform of the electoral administration, there is no better job than preventing a repeat of the hoax and impersonation of "professionals" like the then fake journalist of the Radio Television of Montenegro, Andrija Nikolić, who pretended to be an independent and impartial journalist between the two election processes, and then a few months before the election day ended up as DPS candidate for MP", said Šaranović.
It is, as he said, a plastic example of professionalism in the proposals of the DPS.
Šaranović added that in the "Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters", the basic document of the Venice Commission, it is stated that the general rule is that commission members should be representatives of parliamentary parties or those that received votes above a certain percentage.
According to that document, as he stated, political parties should be equally represented in the SEC, and those representatives should be competent and may not participate in election campaigns.
As Šaranović pointed out, these are clear directions.
"Pranks are out of the question, to reach some new "professionals" under the guise of false professionalism," Saranović said.
Asked to comment on the proposals that the SEC has five members and that they are elected by the Assembly, with a simple majority, as well as that the SEC elects municipal election commissions, Šaranović stated that this solution is so "insidious" that it borders on elementary political education.
When asked whether the opposition and the government can agree on the most demanding legal act in the electoral legislation, the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, by December 7, he replied that agreement with those who "steal elections" cannot and will not happen.
"Finally, we have to understand that we are not reforming the electoral legislation here for the sake of order, but because the DPS has been stealing elections for decades," Saranović said.
According to him, the one who "steals the elections" must, with the help of the international community, be forced to accept all solutions that eliminate the aforementioned abuses.
"I will remind you of the scandalous statement of Prime Minister (Duško) Marković, who clearly announced that the DPS cannot accept those solutions that prevent the DPS from winning the elections again, and thereby admitted that we have brought them into a hopeless situation that forces them even to such uncontrolled political raving", said Šaranović.
He added that all the solutions proposed by the Democrats are in accordance with democratic standards and comparative legal practice, and this claim is best justified by the fact that no one gave a different assessment.
"Just as we, together with our international partners, forced them to accept the Brussels Plan, we will also force them to agree to legal solutions that will create the conditions for the first fair, free and fair elections in the history of Montenegro," Šaranović said.
Asked what the disagreement between the opposition and the government is about when it comes to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, he replied that they are light years away from each other and that the differences in relation to the complete electoral legislation are insurmountable.
"DPS is advocating for the continuation and legalization of electoral crime, triangles, squares, felt-tip pens, that the purchase stations for purchasing identity cards are no longer located in well-known supermarkets, but in grocers, and that there are no paid killers in the DPS election headquarters , but attempted murderers," Saranović said.
According to him, in the process of reforming the electoral legislation, the DPS proposes norms whose application in practice would have zero effect on "electoral crime".
"Most concretely, their measures for fair elections are the application of "ill-mannered measures" which they threaten and call for violence in party announcements," said Šaranović.
According to him, the Democrats are proposing a set of solutions that have proven to eliminate the space for electoral fraud and lead to fundamental changes in the electoral framework.
Šaranović explained that the legal norms they propose foresee measures to eliminate phantom electoral lists, a new structure and competences of a credible SEC, a mechanism to prevent various forms of pressure on voters, such as preventing the imposition of work obligations on election day, a mechanism to prevent the use of telephones at the polling station .
In addition, as he added, they propose that voter identification at the polling station be done with a fingerprint, that voting be done with a stamp on a completely opaque ballot, that is, in a way that eliminates all previous abuses and fully protects the secrecy of each voter's vote.
"From all of the above, it can be concluded that the one who steals cannot propose solutions against theft, but only the one who has proven that he has never stolen," Saranović said.
Asked if all the legal solutions dealt with by the working bodies of the Committee for Electoral Reforms could be completed by the end of the first week of December, Šaranović said that it was possible to complete the work by November 15.
He reminded that the Democrats submitted more than 100 solutions for fair, free and honest elections even before the deadline.
According to Šaranović, it was precisely these solutions and the proposed top mechanisms for preventing, as he stated, DPS election thefts that "brought the masters of election fraud" into a hopeless situation, which is why they resorted to obstructing the work of the Committee.
"If you are familiar with the concept of their election frauds, on the one hand, and if you sincerely and dedicatedly work in the Committee itself proposing solutions against such frauds, on the other hand, then it is absolutely possible to finish the job even before the expiration of that deadline," Saranović concluded.
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