A number of Ministries and state-owned companies, right before local elections, announced ads for jobs, while the Government of Montenegro tried to violation of the Law on financing political parties cover up with brutal untruths and deleting evidence, which shows that the ruling party is not afraid of anything when it comes to misuse of state resources for election purposes.
MANS yesterday officially stated that since the announcement of election on March 24th, 2014, 71 job positions for an unspecific time period were publicly advertised on the website of the Employment Agency of Montenegro, of which the largest number related to state administration and state-owned companies. In its response yesterday, the Government argued that these job advertisements do not exist, and directed citizens to the portal of the Employment Agency.
However, on the website of the Employment Agency last night, after the response of the Government, three advertisements could be found, in the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry for Information Society andTelecommunications (http://www.mans.co.me/wpcontent/uploads/izbori/ZZZCG-
02042014.pdf). These ads are deleted this morning from the website of the Employment Agency.
It is similar and with other ads that are also deleted after MANS, actually media published information about illegal employment. For example, from the Employment Agency’s website all ads of
Montenegro Airlines are cleared (http://www.mans.co.me/wp-content/uploads/izbori/ZZZCG-
oglasi.pdf), and it is similar with ads of other institutions.
The question is whether these job advertisements are actually canceled, or just hidden in order to, contrary to the law, secretly employ certain people right before local elections, on which the Government and the Employment Agency must respond to the competent authorities and the Montenegrin public.
One thing is clear: a number of state institutions illegally advertised job offers for an unspecific time period, at the beginning of the election campaign, and the Government, Employment Agency, and Montenegro Airlines tried to cover that up with untruths and deleting evidence.
Instead that the Government of Montenegro ensures that the Law on financing political parties is respected, and citizens’ election will is not affected through the employment process, as in many cases so far, they are trying using shallow manipulations to mislead Montenegrin and international public.
That is the key reason why MANS insisted that the mechanisms for control and sanctions for violations of the prohibition from the Law on financing political parties are entrusted to the authority that does not work in the Government’s system, actually the State Election Commission, because it is obvious that the government, in all ways, is trying to misuse state resources and authority in order to influence the will of Montenegrin citizens.
Therefore, we hope that the State Election Commission will take advantage of the mechanisms of administrative investigation to determine whether the job ads, contrary to the law, that have been active since the announcement of the local elections, canceled or the whole process have been hidden from the public eye. We also expect from the State Election Commission that within prescribed deadline states a violation of the prohibition of job advertising, initiate misdemeanor proceedings, and requests imposition of the maximum fine for each case that we have reported, as well as the imposition of safeguard measures imposed on the performance of the functions from six months up to two years for all responsible individuals who violated the law, especially the director of the Employment Agency, Vukic Jelica.
In the end, the statements of many DPS’s officials show the degree of panic among them due to the start of the new Law on financing political parties, because they are prohibited for the first time in an efficient manner to abuse state resources for the needs of their party, and they face serious sanctions if they are detected. Therefore, there is no surprise a constant urge of the DPS members toward the Constitutional Court to abolish this law, and the exercise of continuing political influence on that institution to follow the instructions of the party, even though they know that the law is in accordance with the Constitution and international standards.
However, the Mayor of Podgorica took a step further, and tried in a heinous manner to attempt to misuse the personal tragedy of workers of the capital city Podgorica, stating that apparently because of the Law on financing political parties he can not help their families, and he will, as a big humanist, consciously break the law. That is, clearly, complete nonsense because needed help to these families has nothing to do with the mentioned law, but the outgoing mayor is not afraid from abuse of the horrible tragedy and human disaster, only to try to disavow the Law and to create an alibi for vote buying.
Vuk Maras
Director of Monitoring Process
Initiatives to SEC (the State Election Commission) with supporting evidence are also available on MANS’s website http://www.mans.co.me/wp-content/uploads/izbori/Inicijative-DIK-Izbori.pdf
