The Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) calls on the Parliament of Montenegro and all political actors to vigorously and urgently initiate the work of the Comprehensive Electoral Reform Committee, which must work at full capacity in the coming months. The fact that this body did not start working six months after the formation of the new convocation of the Parliament calls into question the existence of political will and a real and sincere desire for electoral reform to really happen.
The Committee has a big job ahead of it, which cannot be completed in a few months, if we want a reform that will increase the credibility of the election process. It is necessary to improve the quality of the voter list, depoliticize and professionalize the election administration, stop the misuse of public resources and other forms of illicit financing of party campaigns. It is necessary that all local elections be held in one day. It is also necessary to enable individuals the right to run, and citizens to elect deputies and not party lists. One of the tasks is to enable better representation of women in politics. A major challenge is to provide objective information to citizens during elections, and to protect election processes from disinformation campaigns and foreign interference.
In the research on Montenegro’s progress in meeting the EU political criteria, which we conducted with the support of the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway, we analyzed the elections on the basis of 59 indicators.
You can read the complete analysis on this link.