The leaders of the Ulcinj Municipality received a letter from the prime minister's office at the beginning of the week Milojko Spajić, in which it is requested to determine whether the local parliament should have 33 or 34 councilors, i.e. whether their current number - 33, is aligned with the number of voters on the day local elections are called, "Vijesti" learned from several sources.
The interlocutor from the Municipality of Ulcinj said that the local government is waiting for the results of the population census, after which it will take certain steps and decide according to the request of Spajić's cabinet.
"The previous government decided how many councilors the current convocation of the Municipal Assembly (SO) should have. We will certainly behave responsibly, in order to eliminate any dilemma regarding the regularity of the past elections", he stated.
The interlocutor points out that even if it is determined that the SO should have more councilors, this will be valid for the next elections, and that he does not believe that special elections will be called before the regular elections, which should be held in a little more than two years.
President of the Municipality of Ulcinj Omer Bajraktari, told "Vijesti" that he had been away from work for the past few days and that he was not familiar with the letter from Spajić's cabinet.
The dilemma of whether the Ulcinj elections, held in March 2022, were regular in terms of the number of councilors, was opened this fall by a long-term political and NGO activist and former deputy. Muhamet Nika. He claims that, according to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament, 34 and not 33 councilors should have been elected in the elections, because the number of voters increased by over five thousand.
Article 3 of that law stipulates that citizens in municipalities elect 30 councilors and one more for every five thousand voters. In the same article, it is written that the number of councilors is determined by the SO with a special decision no later than on the day of announcing the election, after notification of the number of voters. In Ulcinj, over 20 voters had the right to vote, but the then convocation of the Council of Ministers did not adopt a decision on the number of councilors because there was no quorum. Nika reminded that in the final report of SO Ulcinj on the March elections (document dated April 9, 2022), it is stated that there were 20.393 voters in that municipality.
"This means that for the elections in the Municipality of Ulcinj, 34 and not 33 councilors should be elected, as before, so the will of the voters has been denied by not making a new decision on the number of councilors", it is written in the letter that Nik sent to the President of Montenegro in mid-September Jakov Milatović. Nika stated that as an individual, as well as an NGO activist, he cares that battles, as a constitutional category, are held legally and regularly.
Nika assessed that the right to vote is protected by election commissions, as well as by the Constitutional Court and other competent courts. He added that by not making a decision on the number of councilors, the local administration "hybridly threw out five thousand voters who could change the distribution of forces in the local parliament".
"As the competent ministry turned a blind eye then, it is doing so now, because of the 'sicarians'." But some municipalities in the north don't give them that 'šićar', where because of 20 or 10 votes of new voters, the end of the elections is not in sight", stated Nika in the letter, alluding to the elections in Šavnik, which have not been concluded even after more than a year.
Nika asked Milatović for an answer so that, as he stated, he would inform the EU Delegation in Podgorica and the OSCE about his claims. As he did not receive an answer, Nika sent Milatović a written urgent request at the end of October.
The government in Ulcinj is held by the coalition "For a new beginning" (Civil Movement URA, Democratic Party, Social Democrats, Social Democratic Party and Albanian Alternative) and Forca.
In the letter he sent to the head of the Ulcinj parliament regarding the same question Ardijan Mavrić, Nika reminded him that the relevant ministry once pointed out the fact that, by increasing the number of voters from 15 thousand to more than 20 thousand, that municipality was obliged to make a decision on the election of 34 councilors.
He proposed to Mavrić that the SO elect another councilor, in order to restore the legitimacy of the Assembly.
"If you are not able to do that, inform the president of the state about everything, who, according to his authority, would cancel the local elections in Ulcinj and call for new ones," said Nika.
According to the Law on the Election of Councilors and Members of Parliament (Article 15), in the event of the termination of the mandate of the local parliament before the end of the term for which it was elected, the head of state calls for elections on the following day from the day of its dissolution, i.e. the following day from the date of entry into force of the decision to shorten the mandate of the assembly .
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