Šehović: We will not allow the misuse of data on the census, one month is not enough for an agreement on control

We suspect that the abuse of data in the census is being prepared, and that the parliamentary majority sees an opportunity for a kind of ethnic engineering, in order to make constitutional changes, which would be, as he says, a silk cord for civil Montenegro, and they will not allow that," he said. leader of the Social Democrats of Montenegro (SD) guesting on the Link show on Radio Montenegro.
Šehović points out that they are not against the census, but they have a problem with the abuse of this statistical process for other purposes and suspect that it is being prepared, which is why they asked for its postponement. He believes that a month, if there is a delay, will not be enough to reach a political agreement and establish complete control over this complex process.
As Šehović pointed out to a guest on the "Link" show, it is very bad that the entire process was politicized, and as a party they tried to avoid that by proposing amendments, asking for the deletion of disputed questions about nation and religion, which is otherwise the practice in some European and world countries. .
"Those proposals were not accepted and today we have come to a situation where there are no personnel, technical, or political conditions for holding the census. Personnel in the sense that there is an insufficient number of enumerators, inadequately prepared instructors, delays in training. In the technical part, there are shortcomings with inadequate selection of premises for storing materials in some municipalities, which Monstat was warned about. There was a delay in drafting by-laws that had to be completed several months before the census. Nor is the way of work and functioning of census commissions legally regulated. As for the political conditions in "There is a brutal campaign going on from neighboring countries, we don't have a government, we don't have a parliament. All of this is a textbook example of the environment in which the census should not be held," emphasized Šehović.
He interprets the statement of Mandatory Milojko Spajić on postponing the census as a confirmation of each of their arguments, and thinks that a month is not enough to reach an agreement.
"We are ready to talk to whoever is needed and lend a hand to create a credible environment for the census. But in a month, we will control the entire process, reach a consensus about the enumerators, controllers for data entry and data processing. Is a month enough for external monitoring as well? and to create a software solution that would allow every citizen to check whether the data he had entered as such in the database," says Šehović.
The bottom line, he says, is that the opposition is not inventing hot water and is not asking for anything more than what the then opposition from the current government asked for in 2011, and we, as the government at the time, accepted that. He believes that an agreement is possible if the intentions are sincere, and he believes that it cannot be reached in a month.
He notes that the campaign from our neighboring countries and certain religious communities must stop. He says that the president of SNS organized a meeting with Montenegrin students yesterday and told them that if they submit a list with the desired statement, they can get free education.
"Is that the environment for holding the census," asked Šehović.
Regarding the exposé of the new Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, the president of the SD says that he is not overly interested and does not believe that it will be implemented. He said that SD will not support the 44th Government, because of the character of that government and the majority that elects it, because it does not consider them to be truly European or Euro-Atlantic.
POBJEDA