President of Bar Municipality Dušan Raičević resigned today from the position of deputy of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in the Parliament of Montenegro, "Vijesti" has learned unofficially.
He did it because of the incompatibility of functions, respecting the decision of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK).
Raičević's place in the parliament could be taken by Elvir Zvrko, according to the electoral list of DPS.
At the end of September, the ASK annulled its decisions of last year, while Jelena Perović was at the head of the Agency - that the then presidents of the municipalities of Bar, Kolašin and Tuzi, Dušan Raičević, Vladimir Martinović and Nik Đeljošaj, were not in a conflict of interest even though, apart from that position, they were and in the parliament.
Ten days later, at the beginning of October, the institution headed by Dušan Drakić invited parliamentarians who are concurrently in the positions of president or vice president of the municipality, as well as president or vice president of municipal assemblies, to resign from one of their positions.
In addition to Raičević, the president of the Municipality of Nikšić Marko Kovačević (NSD) and the president of the Bar Municipality Assembly Branislav Nenezić (SD) are also in the two seats.
The presidents of municipalities and local assemblies could be MPs at the same time, because until recently the current regulations did not specify what local government bodies were and what local self-government bodies were.
According to the anti-corruption law valid until mid-June, the functions of the municipal president and deputy were not incompatible because the municipal leader was not a body of local administration (secretariats, agencies, municipal administration...), but of local self-government (president of the municipality and the municipal assembly) - category that was introduced in the new regulation, which was not in the previous one.
ASK reminded of this in September of last year, announcing that Raičević, Martinović and Đeljošaj did not violate the provisions of the act in force at that time.
In the newly adopted regulation, the Law on Prevention of Corruption (the word "prevention" no longer has the letter "j"), local self-government bodies are also mentioned. Therefore, at the end of August, immediately after Drakić became its head, the ASK announced that the positions of president and vice president of the municipality, as well as president and vice president of the municipal assembly, but not the position of councilor, are incompatible with the position of deputy.
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