Analyse : Monténégro - Se regarder droit dans les yeux

Les réflexions sur le nouvel état indépendant dans Transitions Online  par l’expert sur les droits de l’homme Florian Bieber, qui a observé le référendum au Monténégro.

As we talk to members of the local electoral commission of Election Unit 32 in Niksic, Montenegro’s second city, swallows occasionally fly into the voting station, where they have made their nests. There are no voters. Of the 86 eligible voters here, most had already voted in this small hut on the road to the famous Ostrog Monastery, built spectacularly up in the rocks in a valley between Niksic and Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital city. 

Moments before, as we approached the polling station, we found the electoral commission members outside. As they returned to the one-room hut, they explained it was simply cooler and more pleasant to wait outside for the remaining 19 voters who had yet to cast their ballots in the referendum on Montenegro’s independence on 21 May. “We are all relatives and friends here and we have to be able to look each other in the eye tomorrow” was the answer to our obligatory question on how the voting process was unrolling. 

Friends and neighbours

From small polling stations such as this one in villages where everybody knew how everyone else would vote to large polling stations in schools, hiking clubs, run-down theaters, sports halls, trade union offices or chess clubs, this reply seemed to sum up best the atmosphere on the referendum day in this tiny country of less than 700,000 people. While passion levels over the issue of Montenegro’s international status have run very high for years, on the day the voting procedure ran in near-perfect order.

One reason for this is that every electoral board was staffed by equal numbers of supporters of the state union with Serbia and those who favored independence. They sat together in all kinds of rooms in 1,120 polling stations across the country. Considering that each of the electoral boards had six members, in all the electoral commissions comprised about around one percent of the whole population. 

While the number of elections alone is hardly an indicator of the state of democracy, the fact that Montenegro has seen its fair share over the past decade meant that the local boards did not lack experience. In addition, with nearly 500 accredited observers from international organizations and foreign delegations and close to 3,000 local observers, this was probably one of the best observed votes per capita anywhere. 

That the voting went smoothly without any major incidents was certainly also down to both sides of the divide realizing the significance of the occasion and both having a realistic hope of winning the day. 

On the insistence of the European Union, at least 50 percent of registered voters had to participate, and 55 percent of those votes be in favor of independence, for the measure to pass. Preliminary results showed 55.5 percent in favor of independence and 44.5 against. The turnout was 86.5 percent.

To read the article in full, visit the Transitions Online website.