Montenegro Watchdog Activists ‘Assaulted’ at Election Commission

The director of MANS, Vanja Calovic, along with activists Dejan Milovac and Vuk Maras, said they were assaulted on Tuesday by a municipal election commission officer to whom they were attempting to hand over complaints about alleged irregularities at the polls on Sunday.

“While my colleague Milovac was pushed out of the office, [the officer] jumped at me. He grabbed my arms and pushed me,” Calovic said.

“Some man locked us inside. I asked him for the key because he did not have the right to lock me in a state institution,” she added.

The police said they were investigating the incident.

About 500 MANS observers monitored Sunday's local elections and reported more than 400 irregularities.

MANS has been locked in a long-running conflict with Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS party, which it has accused of “shamelessly abuse state funds for personal promotion”.

In response, the DPS has accused MANS of working for the opposition and requested that foreign donors that fund the NGO "reconsider their support".

MANS is Montenegro's most influential non-governmental organization and addresses issues of corruption and organized crime.

It has published several reports and audio recordings in recent months which it claims prove “serious wrongdoing” by the DPS.

It has also made a series of allegations against Djukanovic's party connected to the municipal polls, accusing the DPS violating electoral law and of buying ID cards from opposition supporters in order to prevent them from voting.

The DPS has denied any wrongdoing and urged the state prosecutor to take action against "those responsible for waging a campaign of lies against the...