Podgorica, (MINA) – The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) has prepared amendments to the Law on Registers of Temporary and Permanent Residence, which envisage the deletion from the register of individuals for whom there are reasonable grounds to belive that they do not reside in Montenegro, said State Secretary of the MUP Novica Obradovic.

Speaking at the press conference, Obradovic said that on February 20 last year, a working group was formed to deal with oversight of the electoral registry, and that it has held eight sessions so far.

Speaking about the situation in Savnik, he said that the voting process in that municipality had been blocked because locals prevented people whom they believed did not live in that municipality from voting.

“We carried out analysis of the electoral process, and determined that in the six-month period prior to the elections the electoral registry was increased by 371 new voters”, explained Obradovic, adding that this represents 23 percent of the total electorate.

Obradovic said that in 2023, an amendment to the Law on Registers of Temporary and Permanent Residence introduced the possibility of conducting field checks in cases where it is suspected that someone made a false statement when changing their residence.

He said that after the election process in Savnik was blocked at two polling stations, 236 people, who at one point came to live in Savnik, changed their residence again and returned to their previous addresses.

Obradovic said that among those who remained, it was established that for 75 people the center of their activities was not in Savnik, and administrative proceedings were initiated against them to remove them from the register of residence.

He said that, comparing the data from the electoral registry from 2023 and the population census data, a discrepancy of more than 48,000 showed up.

“More than 48,000 citizens, who were not included by the census data, are still registered as residing in Montenegro and listed in the electoral registry”, Obradovic said.

“In order to be able to “tidy” the electoral registry and determine which citizens actually reside in Montenegro, the Law on Registers of Temporary and Permanent Residence must be amended. We have identified the problems and came up with a solution. We have prepared amendments to the Law”, said Obradovic.

He said that they will submit those amendments to the Comprehensive Electoral Reform Committee, even though it is not currently active.

“We will also submit them to the Committee for the Political System and the Legislative Committee, to schedule discussions in order to reach the right solutions”, added Obradovic.

As he stated, there are constant calls for the Ministry to fix the electoral registry.

“We cannot do that if our hands are tied. This is a mechanism that would give us a tool that we can use”, said Obradovic.

Asked to clarify the proposed changes, Obradovic said that Article 12 of the Law on Registers of Temporary and Permanent Residence defines that when someone leaves Montenegro to permanently settle in another country, they may deregister residence, but are not legally obliged to do so. 

“We are asking to be given the authority to remove from the residence register those for whom there are reasonable grounds to believe that they do not reside in Montenegro”, said Obradovic.