The Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI) will monitor the electoral process during the presidential elections, monitor irregularities and misuse of state resources, as well as the work of competent institutions and will provide election day monitoring on the day of the presidential elections with inclusions, as well as the projection of election results.

This was announced at the CeMI press conference on the occasion of the announcement of the mission to monitor the presidential elections in 2023.

The head of the mission, Ana Nenezic, said that CeMI will carry out civil monitoring of the elections, within the project supported by the British Embassy Podgorica.

"The main goal of the project is to contribute to the democratic conditions for holding transparent, free and fair elections through civil control of the electoral process in the presidential elections." The project was designed to ensure a higher level of implementation of international standards in the field of elections, as well as the prevention of election fraud and the prevention of abuse of state resources," said Nenezic.

She announced that CeMI will implement a set of activities within the monitoring of the election process.

"We will monitor the work of the State Election Commission and municipal election commissions in relation to the proper implementation of the Law on Elections of Councilors and Members of Parliament and the Law on Voters' List." We will also monitor the work of the Anti-Corruption Agency regarding the implementation of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns," said Nenezic.

She explained that CeMI will monitor the abuse of state resources in the pre-election period based on the methodology they developed and applied in previous election cycles, and which was adapted for the presidential elections.

"Also, we will deal with monitoring the work and reporting of the media during the pre-election campaign and the electronic voter identification system." CeMI will have its representative in the work of the Coordinating Body for monitoring the implementation of the electoral legislation organized by the MUP. We will also monitor the central voter list, its changes and updates," said Nenezic.

She announced that CeMI will hire long-term observers who will monitor the entire process of the pre-election campaign, and that their reports will be published periodically.

"We will hire over 1,000 short-term observers who will be at the polling stations in both constituencies, which we believe will happen based on projections. We will also have a preliminary statement on the regularity of the elections and the projection of the election results, which we will issue the day after the elections. After that, we will prepare a comprehensive Final Report on the elections after the end of the elections," said Nenezic.

She pointed out that CeMI will provide monitoring of the election day with inclusions, as well as projection of election results with preliminary counting of votes and projections on the basis of polling stations included in the sample.

She pointed out that CeMI is the only organization in the region that managed to develop the Fair Elections application, which is available in the Play store.

"We also have a website www.ferizbori.me where you can find all available information," Nenezic added.

She announced that, in addition to irregularities during the election day, CeMI will also monitor the misuse of state resources.

"For the first time, citizens have been given the opportunity to report, according to the categories listed, everything that they consider to be misuse of state resources, and our team will react accordingly," Nenezic said.

As she said, CeMI will supervise the work of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and monitor the implementation of the Law on the Financing of Election Campaigns and Political Parties.

"We will focus on the part that concerns the misuse of state resources, which I believe will be crucial. Also, we will monitor the election administration and CeMI will have its own observer in the SEC during the entire cycle and during the election day," said Nenezic.

Speaking about the current course of the election process, Nenezic pointed out that CeMI is contacted by a large number of citizens every day due to misuse of personal data by political parties and candidates.

"What is happening now for the first time is that representatives of political parties are addressing citizens with their personal first and last name. "CeMI has already appealed to the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data to find a way and come out with an attitude and opinion and protect citizens from unprecedented abuse of personal data for electoral purposes," said Nenezic.

She pointed out that the Personal Data Protection Agency does not deal with the protection of citizens' data, but that it has assumed the function of restricting the right defined by law to organizations that deal with civil monitoring of elections, which is to inspect the documentation that accompanies the application of the candidates themselves.

"Until today, we have not been given the possibility of that insight, we have not had the opportunity to monitor the process, nor to check the signatures," said Nenezić.

Commenting on the abuse of state resources and the financing of election campaigns, Nenezic reminded that the legal framework has not been implemented in that part, explaining that even today we do not know when the campaign will officially start.

"You have a law that states that the campaign starts formally from the moment the candidates confirm their candidacy. However, no one can answer what happens with the campaigns that we all witnessed before the candidacy itself was confirmed. The difference is that the candidates are not obliged to open a separate account, nor can the competent institutions control their financing until the campaign itself is confirmed," said Nenezic.

She announced that CeMI will monitor foreign influence, media analysis, and the influence of disinformation, stating that she believes that these will be important topics that the organization will advertise on.

When asked by a journalist how she comments on the allegations of social network users who claim that their support signatures have been misused and what they expect to be done, Nenezic reminded that no organization responsible for civil control of the election process has been given access to the candidate's support signatures.

"On the other hand, we saw those announcements and checked ourselves whether we were illegally on the list of signatures." "In order to see what is happening, we will use every possibility that the law gives us, to try to protect the rights of voters in that direction," said Nenezic.

He believes that the SEC did not react in a timely manner and that these situations could have been prevented.

"That's why we insist on full transparency of the work of the SEC, so that such situations do not occur," said Nenezic.

Asked whether CeMI has mechanisms that can determine the abuse of state resources for electoral purposes, Nenezic reminded that CeMI has an application and a website where citizens can directly report abuses.

"On the application and website, we made a categorization that is not in accordance with our law, because our law does not adequately recognize the forms of misuse of state resources." We used what is good international practice of election observation and gave citizens a wider space by explaining to them what the abuse of state resources entails and thus the reports. Our goal is to propose an amendment to the legal framework based on the applications, in order to try to put an end to it," concluded Nenezic.

CeMI members who are part of the mission were also presented at the press conference: Maja Milikic, deputy head of the mission, Ognjen Mitrovic, legal analyst, Milos Vukanovic, political campaign financing analyst and Vladimir Simonovic, election administration analyst and SEC observer.