The final results of the extraordinary parliamentary elections will not be announced before the first half of July or even until the end of the month, according to Ana Nenezić, executive director of the Center for Monitoring and Research.
Parliamentary elections will be repeated at one polling station in Cetinje, after the Constitutional Court on Thursday accepted the appeal of the electoral list of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and annulled the decision of the State Election Commission (SEC).
Asked if that decision could affect the prolongation of the announcement of the final election results, Nenezić replied that it is difficult to give a precise assessment, due to the dissonance between the provisions of the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, which refer to the deadline for determining and publishing the election results, and the deadlines from the Law on Administrative Procedure.
"That dilemma only points to another controversial point that requires a clear definition in, I hope, the soonest possible reform of the electoral legislation," Nenezić told the MINA agency.
She said that newspaper representatives use their rights guaranteed by law to submit a complaint to the Municipal Election Commission, and then to the SEC, and then they have the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
As Nenezić added, although the deadlines are prescribed, there is room for possible abuse of those rights, which can unnecessarily prolong the process of declaring the final election results.
According to her, it is necessary to wait and see if the SEC will manage to find a legal way to respond to that situation, which primarily depends on the further course of the process.
"Similarly, after the repeated elections in Cetinje, the same rights and deadlines apply. Looking at all these factors, it is realistic to expect that the final announcement of the results will not be possible before the second half, or even the end of July," Nenezić assessed.
She reminded that, after the Constitutional Court accepted the SDP's appeal, the Prijestonica Municipal Council will organize a re-voting at polling station number 16, Lovćen Partizanski Detachment II, in Cetinje.
Nenezić said that that polling station has 672 voters, as well as that the SDP needs more than 400 votes in order to pass the census and win mandates for participation in the next composition of the Assembly.
"That possibility exists, and its success predominantly depends on the SDP's ability to motivate voters to exercise their right to vote in a significantly larger number than in the previous elections," Nenezić believes.
She said that, if that happens, the SDP could win two mandates at the expense of Europa Sad and the Democratic Party of Socialists, which would thus lose one mandate each.
"Therefore, those two lists also have a strong motive not to be passive observers of the election process, but to motivate their voters to oppose the intentions of the SDP, thereby preserving their current mandates," Nenezić said.
She said that it is high time for political actors to understand the necessity of reforming the electoral legislation.
Nenezić warned that Montenegro faced numerous challenges in previous election cycles due to legal gaps, inadequacy of legal norms and collisions.
"The same problems keep repeating themselves. I am deeply convinced that now is the key moment to make this topic one of the priorities and that many of the problems that we have persistently pointed out are finally resolved," concluded Nenezić.
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