The Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) called on members of the Parliamentary Committee for Comprehensive Electoral Reform to begin work on the remaining part of the electoral reform as soon as possible.
CDT Program Director Milica Kovačević said that experience in preparing amendments to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives requires that the preparation of the amendments that the Committee co-chairs and other members have publicly promised on several occasions be urgently started.
According to her, the lack of time to finalize solutions, the failure to hold a serious public debate on the proposed solutions, and the avoidance of obtaining the opinions of relevant international institutions, which occurred in July, must not be the modus operandi for continuing the reform.
"Therefore, within the Committee, the remaining three working groups must immediately begin work - one that will continue working on amendments to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives, the second that will predominantly deal with the voter register, and the third that would prepare amendments to the Law on the Election of the President, the Law on Political Parties, and the Code of Ethics," Kovačević stated.
She pointed out that there are about twenty very important segments of the electoral process that were skipped in the first round of reform, and without whose adoption, as she assessed, what was done in July would not have made much sense.
"We believe that it is clear to everyone with elementary knowledge of this topic that the part of the electoral reform, which was adopted in July, can represent a prerequisite for a better electoral process, only if the reform continues, important remaining issues are resolved, and then they are consistently implemented in practice," the statement said.
Kovačević said that only four months remain for a significant number of solutions that need to be prepared.
She stated that, with that in mind, the CDT believes that there is no room for waiting, laziness, or any party calculations, but that this work must begin immediately.
Kovačević said that it is necessary to work at the same pace as the working group that prepared amendments to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives worked during July.
"The behavior of the MPs who make up the Committee, but also their political subjects regarding the continuation of the electoral reform, will give us the answer to an important dilemma - will a comprehensive and real reform really happen, or is the story of politicians in this process another in a series of deceptions of citizens that we witness almost daily in Montenegro," the statement reads.
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