Although the election deadlines for the parliamentary elections are running out because they are scheduled for June 11, so far no one is in a hurry to hand in their ballots, nor is they interested in the purity of the voter list, which includes almost 85 percent of Montenegrin citizens.
Parties, coalitions or groups of voters who want to participate in the parliamentary elections on June 11 should submit a list of deputies to the State Election Commission by midnight on May 16.
The voter list for the upcoming elections has not yet been published, and according to the data provided to "Vijesta" from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), the number of voters registered in the voter list of Montenegro on April 24, 2023 is 543.151.
The latest official data from MONSTAT on the number of inhabitants show that last year there were 617.683.
Until now, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) and the Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI) have requested and received accreditation for election observation from the State Election Commission.
Deputy Executive Director of CDT Biljana Papović yesterday called on the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information (AZLP) to use the supervisory powers from the Personal Data Protection Act, and proactively and timely check whether political subjects legally collect signatures of support for electoral lists for parliamentary elections.
"We would like to remind you that the submission of electoral lists is possible from April 7, and that the deadline for their submission is May 16, and that political subjects are already collecting signatures of support," says Papović.
She recalled that during the recently concluded presidential elections, during the collection of signatures of support for candidacies, numerous cases of misuse of citizens' personal data and forgery of signatures were recorded, which the prosecution is investigating.
"Unfortunately, this is not the first time that mass misuse of citizens' personal data has occurred in election processes, and it was precisely the inaction and passivity of the competent institutions that made it possible for abuses to be repeated without fear of sanctions," she said.
They state that in earlier abuses, there must have been a violation of the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Act, because political parties collected special categories of personal data, which can only be processed with the express consent of individuals, which in a large number of cases they did not receive:
"In these cases, the AZLP did not do its job, that is, it did not protect the rights of citizens, and neither did the electoral process. Instead of those who abuse the personal data of citizens, AZLP chose to protect this data from domestic and international observers officially authorized to observe all segments of the election process".
He reminds that the SEC determined that at least 4.338 signatures are needed to support the electoral list, that is, 1000 signatures in the case of minority lists, or 300 signatures in the case of electoral lists representing a minority community with a participation of up to two percent in the total population.
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