The sessions of the Municipal Assembly (MA) of Kolašin, however, will not be broadcast live via the YouTube streaming service on the official channel of the Municipality, even though this was an initiative from the Assembly's collegium. The government councilors took advantage of the moment when the opposition councilors were not in the hall and voted overwhelmingly against the initiative.
The opposition Movement "Together We Build Kolašin" (DPS, SDP, SD and non-party figures) claims that "the councilors of the ruling majority, contrary to the Rules of Procedure, voted twice differently on the same agenda item."
"Namely, during the first vote on the proposal to vote on the initiative for public broadcasting of sessions via the Municipality's YouTube channel immediately or at the end of the session, the majority of councilors decided to postpone the vote until the end of the session, apparently assessing that at that moment they did not have enough votes to reject the initiative. However, after the opposition, outraged by such manipulative behavior, left the session and thus prevented a quorum for further work, representatives of the ruling majority urgently secured the presence of the missing councilors, who were in nearby catering facilities, and repeated the vote on the same point. This time, without the presence of the opposition, which submitted the initiative in question, it was decided to vote on the initiative immediately," the "Together We Build Kolašin" Movement announced.
The majority of councilors present spoke out against the proposal to broadcast Assembly sessions publicly, which, according to the opposition, "once again confirmed the practice of media isolation of the local parliament and denying the citizens of Kolašin insight into the work of their elected representatives."
"We note that the opposition has so far shown a more than fair attitude, ensuring a quorum for work and decision-making at sessions of the Parliament and parliamentary committees when representatives of the ruling majority, for justified and unjustified reasons, were prevented from attending," say the Kolašin opposition.
The ruling Kolašin majority has been refusing to broadcast the local parliament sessions live for a long time, but so far there has been no explanation for the reasons for this stance. The councilors of the parties that make up the government are mostly inactive at the municipal council sessions and cannot boast of the frequency of their appearances at the rostrum.
"We were particularly surprised by the behavior of the President of the Assembly, Mr. Vasilije Bulatović, who, unfortunately, agreed to take the leading role in this petty, fraudulent act, with the obvious goal of hiding from the citizens of Kolašin what their elected representatives are really doing. We expected Bulatović, who has repeatedly confirmed his willingness to enable public broadcasting of sessions, not to allow himself to be directed by someone else to manage an obvious deception," said Bojan Zeković, a councilor of the "Together We Build Kolašin" Movement.
He says that "the parliamentary majority, immediately after the opposition left, within just 25 minutes "discussed" as many as 11 agenda items, including those that normally take hours of debate, such as the budget rebalance and the temporary facilities program...".
That's why, says Zeković, it's clear why such behavior is being tried to be hidden from the public eye.
He claims that this is a “direct denial of citizens’ right to know how decisions are made about matters that affect their lives.”
Commenting on today's voting, the President of the Municipal Assembly Vasilije Bulatović said that "the ruling majority did not decide, because there was no counting, but rather the position, as always, was to vote at the end of the session."
"The opposition demanded an immediate vote, and because it was not allowed to do so, it left the session. Then, due to the opposition's actions, the ruling majority decided to vote on the disputed agenda item immediately," he explains.
The President of the Municipal Assembly, commenting on Zeković's statement, said that "there was no fraudulent act" in today's vote.
"The opposition demanded that the voting practice be changed at the end of the session, because they calculated. They miscalculated in their calculations and are now looking for the culprit," said Bulatović.
After the opposition left the hall, the ruling majority quickly ended the debate and voting on more than ten items on the agenda.
Among the adopted decisions are the budget rebalance, the program of temporary facilities, reports on the work of companies and institutions, the sports strategy...
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However, before voting on the initiative and other decisions, councilors, even those from the ruling majority, had numerous questions for the executive branch. Councilor Miodrag Vlahović from GP URA, which is part of the Kolašin government, asked the Mayor Petko Bakić whether it was true that he had requested police assistance against the villagers peacefully protesting in the village of Mušovića Rijeka. Vlahović was also interested in where the money that was previously shown as having been spent on the construction of a bridge in that village had gone, given that the construction of the bridge had never even begun, and that the Basic State Prosecutor's Office had filed an indictment against a municipal employee in connection with falsifying data for that project.
The councilor of the Voters' Group, Gospava Vujisić, was dissatisfied with the disparaging way in which she was answered to a question regarding the construction of the bridge on the Pčinja River. She asked Bakić to explain why funds for the construction of the bridge were withdrawn from the budget.
Councilors of the "Let's Build Kolašin Together" Movement asked several questions regarding traffic infrastructure and traffic problems in that city.
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