Another competition has been cancelled: The Commission for the Implementation of the Election of the President and Members of the Central Election Commission will renew the public call

The Commission for the Implementation of the Election of the President and Members of the Central Election Commission (CEC) will renew the public call for filling this important electoral body, because candidates for CEC members did not meet the required threshold of 50 points.

This is stated in a statement by the Commission, published on the parliament's website.

"The Commission for the Implementation of the Election of the President and Members of the CEC conducted the evaluation process of the registered candidates in accordance with the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives, published in the fourth public competition, as well as based on the legal criteria and the scoring methodology defined by the procedure previously adopted by the Commission in accordance with the law," the statement reads.

It is stated that the evaluation of the candidates' applications was carried out on the basis of the submitted documentation, an individual assessment of the fulfillment of each of the legally defined criteria, as well as an assessment of the impression that each candidate left after the interview.

It is emphasized that after the procedure, the Commission determined that Boško Nenezić achieved a total of 78 points and thus met the requirements for the election of the President of the CEC.

However, based on the individual grades for each of the other candidates, it was concluded that they scored below 50 points according to the prescribed criteria.

"In accordance with such voting outcome and determined points, as well as the fact that the legally required majority of 4/5 was not achieved for the proposal for members of the CEC from candidates who scored points below the defined threshold, the Commission concluded that there are no conditions to submit a reasoned proposal for candidates for president and members of the Central Election Commission to the Administrative Board of the Parliament of Montenegro," it is explained.

The statement states that, given the importance and responsibility of the function of CEC members and "the clear intention of this Commission to ensure a high level of expertise and integrity of the future president and members, and in particular the depoliticization of the future institution as the bearer of the electoral system as a whole" - the Commission has decided to renew the public call.

The Commission published the fourth advertisement for the CEC at the end of April, because it concluded that there were no conditions to submit a proposal for a candidate for the president and members of the CEC to the Administrative Committee of the Parliament. The members of the Commission proposed Boško Nenezić for the president of the CEC, but were unable to propose candidates because none of them achieved a sufficient number of points (according to the prescribed criteria). The Commission, based on the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives, is obliged to compile a list of candidates for the president and members of the CEC, which it cannot do without proposing a candidate for the head of the CEC.

The first advertisement for filling the CEC position failed at the end of last year, when the Commission members unanimously decided that the then only candidate for CEC president did not meet the legal criteria.

The second competition "fell" at the end of February, when it was announced that no candidate had "sufficiently" fulfilled the criteria on the basis of which they could be nominated for president.

The third public call was announced in mid-March.

According to the amendments to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives adopted last summer, the State Election Commission should be transformed into the CEC.