Election day passed in a peaceful atmosphere, the character and extent of irregularities did not jeopardize the regularity of the overall election process, and all entities in the election process have accepted the election results, which makes this election unique in Montenegrin history, the Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI) announced at a press conference on the occasion of the presentation Reports on Preliminary Conclusions and Findings "Civic Monitoring of Elections Parliamentary and Local Elections Montenegro 2020".

The President of the Governinig Board of CeMI, Zlatko Vujovic, said that the election process was marked by the incompetence of the State Election Commission, numerous irregularities in the work of polling stations, and a strong functionary campaign that made the border between the state and the ruling parties invisible.

"The scope and character of the irregularities did not endanger the regularity of the overall election process, and the election result faithfully reflects the expressed electoral will of the citizens", Vujovic said.

He pointed out that the period immediately after the elections was marked by cases of violence against members of national minorities and dissidents by supporters of the new ruling majority.

"Several buildings of the party of the coalition that lost the majority after the elections were demolished, as well as the damaged vehicle of the public service RTCG which has been reporting from the celebration of the parties that won the majority", Vujovic said.

He strongly condemned the violence that took place in the previous days, expressing his concern, because the subject of that violence were members of national minorities and political dissidents.

"We respect and support the reactions of the previous opposition parties, the parties of the new majority, which called on their supporters not to celebrate publicly anymore, We support the fact that Mr. Dritan Abazovic's reaction was to visit Pljevlja and condemn the attack, but I think that the leaders of the ruling majority need additional responsibility and that the argument that these are all provocations of another political party, is difficult to believe, especially since all these incidents were done quite publicly", Vujović pointed out, assessing that the reaction of the state authorities must be quicker.

Speaking about the report, he said that the elections were held within the changed legal framework, stating that despite the changes, not all recommendations of the Venice Commission, OSCE ODIHR missions and domestic observation organizations were followed.

"Comprehensive and inclusive electoral reform was lacking due to the lack of political support that would be confirmed by the necessary 2/3 majority in parliament. The legal framework contains illogicalities, inconsistencies and contradictions due to frequent amendments. The electoral system puts Roma members in an unequal position, who do not have equal status with members of the minority community, which participates in a similar percentage in the total population", Vujovic stated.

He pointed out that the system of differential legal censuses, which gives minorities a privileged position, contains illogicalities, which can lead to an effect that is inconsistent with the concept of positive discrimination against minority peoples.

The program director of CeMI, Ivan Vukcevic, said that all members of the permanent composition participated in the work of the SEC in the last phase of the election process, and in addition, as he explained, and all electoral lists appointed authorized representatives which strengthened the legitimacy in the decision-making of this body.

"In the last phase of the election process (from August 26 to the day of the elections), the State Election Commission issued two opinions regarding the conduct of voting by letter. In this way, more detailed instructions for voting by letter were given, but it was still not clear what happens in case the members of the polling board do not manage to conduct voting for persons who have a residence in a certain municipality, but are not located in its territory. CeMI pointed out this risk with its’ statement during the election day", Vukcevic said.

CeMI’s observers, he said, found that the training of polling station committee members was uneven.

"Namely, no mechanisms have been provided to determine that all members of the polling boards attended online trainings on television or downloaded video content from the website of the State Election Commission. Also, many members of the polling board asked to receive printed material after the training, and some presidents of the municipal election commissions expressed the initiative to conduct additional training for the members of the polling boards", Vukcevic said.

The State Election Commission, he said, did not hold sessions on election day because no objections were filed against municipal election commissions during election day.

"The State Election Commission has determined and published the preliminary election results in accordance with the legal deadline. The results were determined without the voting of the members of the Commission, as was the case in the previous election processes" Vukcevic stated.

He said that the election day was marked by numerous irregularities that appeared in a similar form at a relatively large number of polling stations, stating that the most common were: non-compliance with the obligation to remove the mask during identification, violation of the secrecy of the ballot and non-compliance with the Technical Recommendations of the State Election Commission and the measures of the National Coordination Body.

"Irregularities in most cases were the result of untrained polling boards and did not affect the regularity of elections", Vukcevic said.

Media analyst at CeMI, Milica Zrnovic, said that, in relation to traditional as well as online media, the rules of media advertising of political parties during the pre-election silence were respected and there were no political contents in which the symbols and slogans of political parties stood out.

"However, in relation to the observance of the same rules by political parties on social networks, an increased activity of political entities was noticed during Saturday, August 29, 2020. Namely, political parties published a total of 98 contents, of which the opposition parties dominate, namely DCG (25), Real Montenegro (12), DF (10), SDP (14), SNP (7), URA (7), BS (5), DNP (4), HRS (4), DEMOS (3), RP (2), DPS (1), LP (1), PZP (1), Albanian List (1)", Zrnovic said.

During the period of pre-election silence, as she stated, political parties had a total of 84 thousand interactions and 444 thousand content views on Facebook.

"It is important to emphasize that the three most active parties that day (DCG, Real Montenegro and DF) alone achieved 71 thousand interactions, i.e. 85 percent of the total number of interactions", Zrnovic said.

The project "Civic Monitoring of Parliamentary and Local Elections in Montenegro 2020" was financially supported by the British Embassy in Podgorica, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in Belgrade.