Lawyer and former Minister of Justice Dragan Šoć assessed that holding all local elections in one day would not be what was desired, and the executive director of the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), Dragan Koprivica, suggested that citizens should also vote for the local community council on the same day they elect councilors in the local parliament.
They made this statement while speaking at the panel discussion "Electoral Legislation Reform: Single Election Day, Direct Presidential/Mayorial Elections and Open Lists - Challenges and Advantages" organized by the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro (ZOCG).
In her introductory speech, the secretary of the organization, Mišela Manojlović, assessed that the issue of local elections concerns primarily citizens who want functional local self-government.
She pointed out that the mayor used to be directly elected.
"That is why it is very important today to remember the reasons why direct elections were introduced by a special law in 2003, to answer the question of why we gave up on them only six years later, as well as the question of whether and what we essentially and long-term solved with the elections for local assemblies in one day. Is now the right time to rehabilitate these practices, or should we consider other options adapted to our very specific social and political circumstances?" she said.
Minister of Public Administration Maraš Dukaj announced that strong and efficient local self-government is the foundation of a strong and just society.
"That is why we at the Ministry of Public Administration have set a high priority for the reform of the local self-government system. In that sense, we have defined, or rather committed ourselves to, the decentralization and digitalization of local self-government with special emphasis," he said, adding that in January last year, the executive branch adopted an analysis of the functioning of the local self-government system, which showed numerous weaknesses in the existing system and pointed to the urgent need for change.
As he added, this analysis showed that Montenegro is one of the most centralized countries in Europe.
Dukaj pointed out that today there are also municipal presidents who did not appear on the electoral lists, as well as rotating municipal presidents, and that the question arises as to who is the first person of a municipality.
He added that everyone must get involved - central government, local communities, NGO sector, academic community, international partners.
"It is clear that without a comprehensive reform of the electoral system there is no solution. We have sent two initiatives to the Parliament - the introduction of direct elections and elections in one day. I believe that holding elections in one day reduces irregularities such as electoral tourism and rotation of presidents," the Minister of Public Administration stressed, adding that if municipal presidents have direct electoral legitimacy, their responsibility towards citizens will be significantly greater.
Opening the first panel, which discussed the advantages and challenges of direct election of the mayor and the organization of elections in one day, Acting Director General of the Directorate for Local Self-Government at the Ministry of Public Administration Nina Blažić assessed that going to the polls on the same day would lead to an increase in turnout and trust in the process itself, but also to national issues not being dominant at the local level.
She pointed out that in the previous period, a frequent occurrence was the introduction of committees of commissioners due to the dysfunctionality of local parliaments, but also the phenomenon of the Government convening sessions of municipal assemblies, as well as blocking sessions.
Blažić added that the direct election of municipal presidents would ensure their democratic legitimacy.
"Direct elections would ensure that the mayor is elected by the will of the citizens, which would ensure his democratic legitimacy, and thus his accountability to voters for what he presented as his vision for the development of the local community," she said.
When it comes to the initiative to hold elections in one day, Blažić added that it stemmed from the need to ensure "full credibility and efficiency of the electoral process at the local level and in that segment eliminate certain negative practices."
"Does it demotivate, does it burden continuous election campaigns that are, let's say, conducted in a highly polarized climate that citizens as voters are exposed to. Related to this is the question of whether holding local elections on one day provides a clear timeframe that gives voters the space to prepare, knows exactly when they can expect the elections, and that can really affect both the increase in turnout and the growth of trust in the electoral process," she asked.
Koprivica added that he is in favor of direct mayoral elections and one-day elections, but that "the devil is in the details."
"I am a member of the committee (for electoral reform) Vasilije (Čarapić) is here, we have not been famous for quality work or quality analyses in the past year, I hope that things will be resolved, the political dispute will be resolved as soon as possible and that we will start seriously dealing with this there," he pointed out.
He added that, as far as the CDT is concerned, the key question is how to do it.
"There are certain municipalities in which the government was formed recently. How should we treat it if those elections are to be held in June, for example, and how should we treat some whose mandates will expire by then? What if some have their mandates terminated before the end of the cycle," he asked.
As he assessed, it cannot be said that the elections had a local character and that local issues dominated.
He reminded that the elections in the capital in 2022 have been postponed by several months.
"I have heard some proposals to extend the mandate of some municipalities, and I am not surprised because those who are today the loudest in defending the Constitution voted to postpone the elections in Podgorica to 2022," he said, adding that for the direct election of the mayor, it is important to correct the relationship between him and the Municipal Assembly.
He called for the local community council elections to be added to the "package" of one-day elections.
"So, I don't know why this country doesn't like local communities to be elected in elections, without increasing costs, when there are local elections and when we have the opportunity to conduct a fair election process, and not a citizens' meeting where 15 or so people gather that no one can verify, a citizens' meeting that can't verify whether they have a place to live in that local community, so ten people decide that they will make decisions for some 30-40 thousand, and then it turns into party polling stations where safe votes are cast and that is the task of the local communities," he said, adding that the only additional cost would be additional ballots.
Koprivica also said that it is necessary to define what should be done in the event of an early termination of the mandate of a local assembly.
The Dean of the Faculty of Government and European Studies, Đorđije Blažić, assessed that the position of president of the state is the only legitimate one.
"For thirty years we have had the same system - party-oligarchic. In such a system, the party takes power," he said, adding that parties have become constitutive elements of state institutions.
He also said that one-day rallies are desirable, but that he has reservations about the idea of them taking place in a system that has not been reformed.
Šoć asked Blažić if, if there are no legitimate institutions, it means he could kill people, and the institutions are not legitimate to arrest and try him.
"I don't dispute the good intentions behind these topics, but they seem to be imposed on us as if they are exclusively good," he said.
As he added, elections could take place in one day if all municipalities shortened their mandates.
"Legally and politically - legitimate. What comes next - Podgorica, Šavnik, Kotor, Berane? A political crisis occurs, which is completely understandable, and that political crisis causes a full mandate to not be achieved," he said, asking whether the citizens of Petnjica, Rožaje, Žabljak, Kolašin, Mojkovac are ready, when the government in a municipality "cracks", to immediately shorten their mandate and go to the polls again.
As he assessed, he does not see what the gain is for the quality of local self-government, and that the essence of the reform is to achieve quality "and not for us all to go to the elections one day."
Šoć said that the issue of elections in one day is "a waste of time".
"Parties are not ideal, but unfortunately we cannot do without them. So, the issue of elections in one day is a technical issue, and in my opinion, it would be a waste of time to insist on it, because the product of all this does not give what is desired," he pointed out.
When it comes to the direct election of mayor, he assessed that party candidates will once again be elected.
"In the elections in Herceg Novi, the candidates were Stanko Zloković, Dejan Mandić and Vasilije Ilić. Everyone agreed that Ilić was the best candidate, but he was not in the party"
"By far the man with the greatest reputation in Herceg Novi, according to both Dušan Mandić and Stanko Zloković, was Vasilije Ilić. But he did not pass. Because he was not a party candidate for either the DPS or the SNP, at that time it was Dušan Mandić," he assessed.
As he added, there is no mayor in history who had the legitimacy of Miomir Mugoša, whatever you think of him, but he had disagreements with the SDP, which is the government, and so he could not carry out projects, or rather, he carried them out while avoiding the law.
"If we replace the mayor as a counterpart to the prime minister, that's the same. While they enjoy support, go ahead, when they don't, remove them. My starting point is the following - we live in a real time that is not great, nor are we great people, but it is a product of our intelligence. We have no civic culture, nor political culture," said Šoć, adding that the examples of Šavnik and Kotor are illegitimate, but not illegal.
He also reminded that the Judicial Council was out of power for four years, and asked whether all judges elected during that period should be declared illegal. "The defenders of Serbism, Montenegrinism, Albanianism, Bosniakism continue to win local government elections. And it will be like this until people start thinking about what the traffic is like, whether they have a collector and other issues that local government deals with," he said, adding that party politics stems from the world of subjection.
The President of the Municipality of Tivat, Željko Komnenović, said that out of 25 municipalities, only a few have a functioning institution of the Chief Administrator.
"Local governments cannot do anything serious without the consent of the state government," he pointed out, adding that the mayor covers 37 different administrative functions.
About open lists
The second panel concerned the introduction of open lists.
Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Donja Gorica, Mladen Vukčević, stated that there are no uniform open lists.
"The separation goes so far that some types of open lists have 10 names. You will often find that the same model is placed under different headings," he assessed.
The President of the Board of Directors of the NGO Center for Monitoring (CeMI) Zlatko Vujović added that there are various electoral systems - majority, proportional, but also that in constituencies that provide three representatives, it is difficult to implement affirmative action for women.
Looking at the example of Kosovo, which has a preferential electoral system, in which citizens choose their favorites among candidates for parliament, the problem arose because party representatives counted party votes, and each party counted preferential votes for itself.
As he added, there citizens choose a party and up to five candidates, while in Finland the influence of preferential votes is 100 percent.
"The list of candidates is alphabetical. The ballot is blank and people write the number of one candidate they prefer. Of course, the entire country is not one electoral district," he pointed out.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration Dragiša Janjušević emphasized that he is an advocate of one-day elections, and that we must talk about the depoliticization of local self-government, and that in 2019 there was an idea to test open lists at the local level.
The president of the Europe Now Movement parliamentary group, Vasilije Čarapić, co-chair of the Committee for Comprehensive Electoral Reform, said that "academic-social discourse on the issue of open lists has greater potential than political discourse on the committee."
"Currently, the committee exists for political gain and there is no will to implement reforms," he said.
Šoć added that in 1996, a system was established by consensus that protects smaller peoples, and added that the electoral units did not prove to be good.
"If you listened to Predrag Bulatović, you will see the electoral units," he pointed out, adding that this was introduced only once - in 1996, when the distribution of mandates was disproportionate to the number of votes," he pointed out.
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