Šaranović: There are also a significant number of fellow citizens who have passed away and are on the voter list

An accurate, reliable and up-to-date voter register is the basis of democratic and free elections, it was stated at the roundtable "Voters Register - Electoral Integrity of Montenegro" organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) at Villa Gorica in Podgorica, reports the Mediabiro agency.

Minister of Interior Danilo Šaranović, presenting the results of the Working Group for the Control of the Voters' Register, cited as one of the biggest problems the fact that thousands of citizens have not replaced their ID cards for more than a decade.

Mediabiro states that the Working Group, which Šaranović formed in February last year, also showed a discrepancy between the voter register and the number of adult citizens with permanent residence, that is, those who actually live in Montenegro.

"There are more than 48 thousand of them. An alarmingly high percentage. It has been established that there is also a significant number of fellow citizens who have passed away and are on the voter register. So we have citizens who were born in 1914. There are thousands of people in the registers who have not had an ID card for decades, only a passport. An analysis of registered voters by residential address was also conducted and it was determined that we have an outdated address register and several hundred thousand citizens for whom the state does not know their exact residential address. This is more than enough problems that require urgent resolution," said Šaranović.

Seamstress

Deputy Prime Minister for Security, Defense and Internal Policy Aleksa Bečić said that democratic and free elections are the basis of everything.

He cited Šavnik, where elections at two polling stations have been ongoing since 2022, as one of the biggest electoral challenges in Montenegro.

"We had 371 voters who moved to Šavnik a few months before the elections. That makes up a quarter of the electorate in that municipality. Of those voters, 236 returned to their home municipalities shortly after the election process. I think this issue will be resolved from two directions. One is the very important decision of the Parliament of Montenegro to amend the Law on the Election of Councilors and Representatives, based on which the elections will be held on June 13, 2027," Bečić said.

Elections in one day

The fact that local elections for next year are scheduled for one day also supports the reorganization of the voter list, says the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, Nikola Camaj.

"I hope that the parliamentary elections will also be held in one day. This makes it difficult for voters to move to another city and vote in several places within two or three months. One-day elections will help resolve this issue," said Camaj, adding that the voter list should also be sorted out in the part of the diaspora that has returned to Montenegro and is now having problems with papers.

Montenegro needs a diaspora

Diaspora Minister Mirsad Azemović pointed out that some Montenegrin citizens who are temporarily working abroad have not collected their personal documents since 2008. He says they are worried whether their citizenship will be revoked as a result.

"I have been in Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Luxembourg for the last four days. Each of them has the same anxiety - is Montenegro renouncing them and will they lose their citizenship and their rights by being deleted from the voter list. I explained to them that this is not the case. The government does not want to renounce its diaspora and it is not the intention of anyone in Montenegro, especially not the executive branch, to do so," Azemović emphasized, adding that Montenegro is a small country that aspires to join the EU, and that it therefore needs as many residents as possible for economic development and prosperity.

In addition to representatives of the Government and the Parliament, the roundtable at Villa Gorica was also attended by international experts and non-governmental organizations.