WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
Choose language:
The comments stating that Monstat did not receive an official request from any political party regarding the control of the process and the appointment of representatives in census commissions are malicious and based on untruths - said the Democratic Party of Socialists.
They interpret such spins, as they said, as an attempt to justify and shift the blame to the opposition parties after the EP Resolution and the call of the supreme legislative institutions of the EU to postpone the census until more stable political conditions are established.
On October 12, DPS sent 17 requests that should be fulfilled in order to obtain the conditions for conducting the census according to a fair and transparent procedure, in the way it was done in 2003 and 2011 when we were the party in power and the current government , the opposition. In request number 9 and 10, it is explicitly requested to allow the opposition parties to participate equally in the implementation of the population census, through their membership in the census commissions, at the place of receiving the results at the level of local administrations, as well as at the level of the Directorate for Statistics of Montenegro, but also through their presence during the entry and counting of the results of the census - they stated from the DPS.
In request number 10, as they add, it is requested to enable the participation of opposition parties in the selection of instructors and enumerators, as well as the presence of representatives of the opposition when visiting households during the census.
Monstat responded to our requests, and on that occasion also announced that the selection of instructors and enumerators in the majority of municipalities has been completed, and that the presence of opposition representatives when visiting households during the census is not possible and would be in violation of the Law on the Census of Population, Households and apartments, the Law on Official Statistics and the System of Official Statistics and the Law on the Protection of Personal Data - said DPS.
They believe that Monstat's response is hypocritical because, as we have seen these days, activists of ruling parties, wives, sons, and daughters of government officials sit in the census commissions.
The criterion for the selection of the members of the commission, of course tacit and not formal, was precisely the connection with the parties in power. In the light of Monstat's response, where they note that due to the Data Protection Act they cannot allow opposition representatives to be involved in the process, the question arises, on what principle did they allow the government parties to directly enter citizens' houses, and to "play" enumerators, verified by Monstat - DPS emphasized.
They note that according to information from NGOs that analyzed the composition of census commissions and enumerators, there are political extremists among them, who are also a security risk for the implementation of the census procedure.
Bearing in mind that we very clearly communicated what our demands were and that we explicitly asked for direct control of the process, so that there would be no falsification of the census and its facilitation, that Monstat refused, and that the Government did not want to postpone the census even though it could , the spins that they subsequently launch together, convince us even more firmly that such a fraudulent list should be boycotted and that it will be stolen and falsified - the DPS concluded.
M.J.
