President of the Management Board of the Center for Monitoring and Research (CeMI) Zlatko Vujović said that the voting process in Nikšić, despite the challenges, was carried out in accordance with domestic laws, but that the election campaign was marked by foreign influences from Serbia, Republika Srpska and some municipalities in the north Kosovo, tensions and violation of pre-election silence and epidemiological measures.
Vujović pointed out at the press conference that an example of the violation of election silence is the live broadcast of the events of the URA Civic Movement.
He said that following the information published in the media, they investigated and came to the data that 961 persons who are registered in the voter list of Montenegro have JMBG for which there is an address and number of the polling station in Serbia:
"We believe that no less than 961 persons who are registered in the voter list for the municipality of Nikšić are also registered in the voter list of the Republic of Serbia, that is, they have dual residence, which is a violation of the law."
CeMI's PR coordinator Maja Bjelic said that during the local elections there were 138 polling stations and that each station was covered by CEMI's short-term observers.
Vujović said that the documentation provided to them by the Standard portal did not contain unique social security numbers, but only dates of birth, which made checking difficult.
He explained that in accordance with the fact that CEMI has the right to access the voter list as an authorized observer, they checked the data in the voter list of Montenegro.
"We found these faces, we found their unique identification numbers. On the basis of these registration numbers, we made an inspection of the electronic database, that is, the website of the Republic of Serbia, where data on voters is located. That site is used so that the voter knows where his polling station is based on his unique identification number".
Through the inspection, as he explained, they determined that a certain number of persons with that registration number, which is the same as the registration number of one of the people on the list submitted to CEMI, are in the voter list of Serbia.
"This is perhaps the first time that the suspicion that there are double-registered voters has been verified and documented in some way".
He pointed out that all the persons on the list were born in the period when Montenegro and Serbia were in union.
Vujović pointed out that CEMI has already requested an explanation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because they believe that these are not isolated cases.
In the Report on Preliminary Conclusions and Findings, CeMI states that the results of the inspection of the voter list also raise the question of the legality of dual citizenship for these persons:
"The legal assumption is that whoever has the right to vote in Montenegro and Serbia also has their citizenship. CeMI calls on the Ministry of Interior to initiate procedures for checking and possible revocation of citizenship, that is, deletion from the voter's list of Montenegro".
Vujović pointed out that their proposal is to abolish pre-election silence, given that it is not possible to regulate it due to social networks and electronic media.
"Busting on social barriers is not regulated by our legislation. The headquarters of the company is outside of Montenegro, and therefore there is a legal problem to regulate it," Vujović said.
He pointed out that observers noticed great tensions during the pre-election campaign, which citizens also witnessed:
"The strongest political parties obviously did not lack either resources or money. This spread to the streets and in some cases violent events occurred. I hope that all the culprits of such events will be prosecuted, but it seems that Montenegro is going backwards when it comes to the election process", Vujović said.
He pointed out that what was done in Nikšić was perhaps the worst election process ever conducted in Montenegro.
"We have seen the influence of external factors, primarily actors from the Republic of Serbia and Republika Srpska, but we have also seen examples of the arrival of activists from municipalities in the north of Kosovo. Mostly, all this aid went to one political bloc "For the future of Nikšić". For the first time, we had a situation where not only money enters Montenegro during the election campaign, but you have activists, not to mention the media that were under the control of the authorities in Belgrade, which brutally interfered in the campaign.
He said that the Municipal Election Commission did its job well, even though they were under pressure.
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