Part of the parties obliged public officials to pay their membership fees: Aid to the party or a tax on office?

Four Montenegrin parliamentary parties - the Europe Now Movement (PES), the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), the Democrats and the Social Democrats (SD) have obliged their members who are public officials to pay their membership fees.

This is shown by the decisions on the membership fee for 2024, submitted to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) and published on its website. The parties were obliged to make such decisions by January 31, while the ASK has seven days from receipt to publish them. The website does not yet contain the decisions of some political actors, such as the Bosniak Party, the Democratic People's Party, the Socialist People's Party...

According to the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, the monthly membership fee cannot exceed 10 percent of the average salary for the previous year. The average salary in 2023 was 792 euros. According to the aforementioned law, a person who pays more than 10 percent of the salary will be fined in the amount of 500 to 2.000 euros.

For decades, we have been living in a system that in theory is labeled as a system of dividing the spoils... In such a system, it is difficult to view the prescribed membership fees for public officials as voluntary, it looks more like returning a debt to the party for being appointed to a public office or a tax on the office," he underlines. Kovačević

Public officials of the ruling PES and the opposition DPS are obliged to pay the membership fee in the amount of five percent of their monthly income. The strongest opposition party is given slightly more money by public officials employed in the management bodies of companies/institutions, who are obliged to allocate seven percent of their income, while employees in the general secretariat of that party should pay two percent.

PES members pay an annual membership fee in the amount of 10 euros, and DPS members who are permanently employed in state and local self-government bodies, public institutions and enterprises in state, municipal, mixed or private ownership give the party one euro per month. DPS exempted members who are unemployed, pensioners or students, and PES students and pensioners, but made a decision that any member of the party presidency can exempt members who are in a difficult financial situation or cannot give money for some reason.

Public officials of the Democrats are obliged to pay 2,5 percent of their monthly income to the party. When it comes to SD, their public officials allocate three percent of their earnings. Members of that party who perform some other function in the public sector in addition to permanent employment, give up 10 percent of their personal income in favor of the party, while members who are employed pay at least one euro per month. SD exempted pensioners, unemployed and students from membership fees.

As for other parties, some have provided for fixed amounts of membership fees. Thus, members of the Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI) are obliged to pay 12 euros annually, and those who come from families with two or more members of that party - 20 euros for all of them. As in the case of PES, DPS and SD, HGI also exempted the membership fees of certain categories - students, pupils, social cases and those whose incomes are below the average level.

Some parties, as can be seen from their decisions submitted to the KAS, renounced this type of financing, such as the members of the New Serbian Democracy (NSD), the Civic Movement (GP) URA, the Democratic Alliance of Albanians, the Democratic Union of Albanians, Force and the Albanian Alternative they are not obliged to pay the membership fee for this year.

Program director of the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), Milica Kovačević, assessed that party membership fees for public officials look like returning the debt to the parties for their appointment.

She told "Vijesta" that the mechanism of determining membership fees, in which a person who obtains public office and is a member of the party commits to giving an increased membership fee or a certain percentage of income to the party, is one of the recognized ways to strengthen and maintain partitocracy.

Kovačević said that this issue cannot be viewed separately from the Montenegrin social context, in which "most often the best experts do not come to public office, but party staff".

"For decades, we have been living in a system that in theory is labeled as a spoils system, in which the winners of the elections give jobs in the administration to their political supporters, and not only when it comes to appointing the highest political positions, but this includes and employment at the lowest levels of public services, denoted in our country by the phrase 'by depth'. In such a system, it is difficult to view the prescribed membership fees for public officials as voluntary, it looks more like returning a debt to the party for being appointed to a public office or a tax on the office", emphasizes the interlocutor, saying that through this financing mechanism, another way of pouring public funds into party budgets.