Until yesterday, the Directorate for Statistics (Monstat) had not received any official request from any political party regarding the appointment of their deputies to the census commissions.
This was announced to Vijesti from Monstat, in response to the question of whether any of the representatives of the opposition parties officially asked them to appoint their members to the census commissions, as was the case in 2011.
Allowing the participation of opposition parties in the census commissions was, along with the postponement of the census, one of the public demands of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), whose Main Committee on Wednesday evening made a decision to boycott that process.
Acting President of DPS Danijel Zivkovic he said yesterday that they tried to reach an agreement with the authorities about postponing the census.
"In addition to all our requests and good will and requests that we sent, the desire to participate in the organization of the census, the Government and Monstat behaved ignorantly all this time. They did not meet any of our requests, even if they answered a few, we were able to have a regular process. I'm talking first of all about the control of that process", said Živković at the press conference and called on citizens to boycott the census. That is why he is the president of Prava Montenegro Marko Milacic filed a criminal complaint against Živković.
Monstat previously stated that they are acceptable to the DPS request that representatives of political parties be allowed to participate in census commissions in the domain of obligations related to organizational and logistical tasks.
The Social Democrats (SD), the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party also decided to boycott the census.
The Europe Now Movement (PES) yesterday appealed to all political subjects to give up the obstruction of the census, which is carried out through a campaign on identity issues and through calling for a boycott, or at least to be constructive and propose effective mechanisms for monitoring all phases of that process.
The PR team of PES, which will be the backbone of the new government, told Vijesta that calling for a boycott of the census is politically irresponsible behavior because citizens are directly being called to break the law and expose themselves to high fines, and there is no basis in any evidence of possible abuses.
"We do not believe that the citizens will respond to this boycott, but we are certainly concerned about such an open call to anarchy and we doubt the motivation behind this campaign," reads the response of PES, whose leader Milojko Spajic mandate for the composition of the government.
They say that the census is purely a statistical work and that this is the only proper context in which it can be observed.
"According to the available data, Monstat has completed all the preparatory actions for conducting the census in accordance with the Law and best practice. This implies that the instructors and enumerators were selected on the basis of a public announcement, while care was taken to ensure that they were registered with the Employment Office and have the necessary experience, that the instructors have completed training and that everything is ready for the training of the enumerators, which will take place at the end of month", said PES.
As they said, although it is hard to believe that someone will change their identity based on a billboard or a marketing campaign, in terms of declaring themselves on the list, these campaigns are worrisome since it is not clear to the public who is behind them, who finances them and where they are funded from.
"On the level of principle, we oppose any attempt to destabilize society, and the public obstruction of the implementation of the most important statistical process in the country is what it really is," said PES.
Minister of Finance Aleksandar Damjanović he announced that on Wednesday all the activities that have been carried out so far for the organization of the census will be presented, as well as that everything was within the stipulated deadlines.
He believes that the boycott can in some percentages "disrupt the conditional balance".
"However, according to the Law on the Census, there is a mechanism to replace it with the existing registers, so that it cannot be any problem or obstacle to the census," he stated.
He called on DPS to monitor all census activities and control everything from the work of census commissions to data entry.
Živković replied to Damjanović that it was not a problem for them to sit down and come to an agreement.
"If there is a will, Mr. Damjanović, let them postpone the census and arrange monitoring", said Živković.
Minister of Human and Minority Rights Fatmir Đeka yesterday, he submitted an initiative to the Government to postpone the census, based on the appeal of part of the national councils representing minority peoples.
"I am a member of the National Council of Albanians. Minorities make up about 25 to 30 percent of the population. The initiative was signed by five national councils - the Bosniak Council, the Albanian National Council, the Croatian National Council, the Muslim Council and the Roma Council in Montenegro. We don't know if they will also boycott, take some steps... I would like everything to go in a good spirit, let's decide anything", said Đeka.
Prime Minister in technical mandate Dritan Abazovic he repeated his earlier position that the census was delayed a lot.
"There is an indication that a new government will be elected on October 26, so colleague Đeka or someone else will have the opportunity to present this initiative to them. We have the capacity and willingness to implement it. If another government thinks differently, it is completely legitimate," he said.
Minister of the Interior and Abazović's party colleague Filip Adzic (URA) said that the country is ready to conduct the census, but that the future government should be given a recommendation to consider the Resolution of the European Parliament on Montenegro, which states that the census should be conducted when the "political deadlock" ends.
"I think we should give a recommendation to the future government to consider the EP Resolution and accordingly decide whether they have the capacity to carry out the census and whether it is better for Montenegro's future path towards the EU to postpone it," said Adžić.
Assistant director of Monstat Snezana Remiković she told Radio Montenegro that due to the conflicting opinions of Eurostat and the EP, they asked for an explanation of what is happening, especially from Eurostat, to check whether they have changed their opinion in these ten days.
Enumerators are required to visit apartments and record addresses
Responding to the question of how, in case of possible penalties for refusing to provide data, they will determine where someone lives, Monstat announced that in practice it is recognized that an individual as a member of a household can refuse to be enumerated, and that the other members can be enumerated or that the entire household can refuse to be enumerated. .
"In this regard, the enumerators are obliged to visit all the apartments within the assigned enumeration circles for which they are in charge and during this visit record all the addresses that belong to the given enumeration circle. Also, for each apartment, according to the Census Methodology, it is necessary to determine whether someone lives in it or not. It is necessary to comply with the procedures defined by the methodology and internal procedures of the Directorate for Statistics. In cases of refusal to enumerate and after the intervention of the enumeration commission, and the introduction of the Administration, in accordance with the legal provisions, further actions will be processed according to the competent authorities", according to Monstat.
Danijel Živković pointed out yesterday that no one's apartment can be entered without a court order and that the penalties prescribed for boycotting the census are not as presented by Monstat.
He said that citizens can take him as an example, because he "will have a lot of obligations on those days" and that enumerators will not be able to find him at his home address.
In the questionnaire, both national and ethnic affiliation to make it clearer
One of the questions in the questionnaire for the upcoming census is "national or ethnic affiliation". When asked what is the difference between national and ethnic affiliation, Monstat replied that it was put that way for the purpose of clarification.
They pointed out that in the trial census of 2009, the term ethnicity was tested and one of the conclusions was that this term was not recognized and that in a large number of cases its additional clarification was requested.
"In international statistical circles, according to agreement, the word 'ethnicity' is used exclusively for these terms, due to the fact that the common terms of some countries, 'nationality', are mixed with citizenship, thus creating confusion. In this sense, it was agreed that the word 'nationality' will no longer be used either for the concept of ethnic-cultural characteristics or for citizenship. In this sense, the word 'citizenship' is used for citizenship. It is up to the states to define the best terms, i.e. those who will be best understood by the public", they said.
As they stated, during the 1948, 1953 and 1961 censuses, the term "nationality" was used, in 1971 "nationality or ethnic affiliation", in 1981 "belonging to a nation, nationality or ethnic group", in 1991 "national affiliation", In 2003, "national or ethnic affiliation", and in 2011, "national or ethnic affiliation".
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