PODGORICA – Prime Minister of Montenegro, Milojko Spajić, said that all conditions from the Census Agreement, signed with representatives of the opposition parties and councils of the minority nations, are being met. However, the leader of the opposition DPS Danijel Živković said that conditions have not been met and called authorities to postpone the census for a few more days.
“To be precise, as stated in the agreement: we expanded census commissions more than required; we republished the public call for instructors and census takers, the expanded commissions selected census takers by parity; checking the inserted data into the software has been regulated by law and is in line with the census agreement,” the Spajić said, CDM reported.
Also, as he says, the decision on establishing the commission for monitoring the census software and its (commission’s) work is determined by law now.
“A parliamentary committee has been set up to monitor the implementation of the agreement. We defined the way of inserting data and respected the deal not to allow the pre-census campaigns by the political parties from the moment of signing the agreements, in order to prevent them from affecting the census results”.
Živković from the DPS pointed out that the census was not postponed at the insistence of acting Parliament President, Andrija Mandić, who, as Živković stated, is working on the orders of official Belgrade. “The blackmail of Mandić is greater than the agreement that the government and the opposition would implement”, said Živković, CDM reported.
He added that at yesterday’s meeting with the Prime Minister and MONSTAT, it was established that not all conditions from the agreement were met.
“There is no will to extend the census for some time, which is primarily the position of Andrija Mandic”, Živković pointed out. He concluded that their goal was not to obstruct the census but to build trust.
The first decision of the new Montenegrin Government led by Milojko Spajić was to postpone the census for a month. According to the decision of Dritan Abazović’s government, the census was scheduled for 1 November, but the national minority councils representing Bosniaks and Croats and the opposition Democratic Party of Socialists, Social Democrats, and Liberal Party have urged the authorities to postpone it, and urged their voters not to participate.