MONTENEGRIN MINORITIES LAW TO BE CAMPAIGN ISSUE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 000940 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM MW SUBJECT: MONTENEGRIN MINORITIES LAW TO BE CAMPAIGN ISSUE BELGRADE 00000940 001.2 OF 002 SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY Ref: Belgrade 521 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Montenegro's new Law on Minorities, passed in the heat of the referendum campaign on May 10, will be an issue in the run-up to the fall parliamentary campaign. The law expanded the number of minority MP set- aside seats from four (of 75) to nine (of 80),to add Bosniak, Muslim, and Croat seats to the present Albanian seats. The civic opposition Socialist People's Party - SNP - has publicly and privately objected to the set-aside seats (in large part due to the minorities' support of the GOM in the referendum). The Council of Europe has decided not to take a public position on the law. End summary. New Law on Minorities, New Set-Aside Minority Seats -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) Montenegro passed a Law on Minority Rights and Freedoms (Law on Minorities) on May 10, to solidify minority support for independence in the May 21 referendum (ref). Article 23 of the new law has attracted the most attention, in creating new set-aside seats for ethnic minority parties in the Republic Parliament. In 1998, four set-aside seats in the 75-seat parliament were created for the Albanian minority (five percent of the republic population). Currently, two of the four seats are held by PM Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and two by ethnic Albanian parties. The new law, according to Minister for National and Ethnic Groups Rights Protection Gzim Hajdinaga, will add five seats: three for Bosniaks, one for Muslims, and one for Croats. (In 1998 these groups decided not to request reserved seats.) Hajdinaga explained that Roma are excluded as only 0.45 percent of the Montenegrin population reports itself as Roma, and the law sets aside seats only for minorities which comprise at least 1.0 percent of the population. Note: Most estimates suggest Roma comprise around 2 percent of the population, but most reported themselves as "Montenegrin" in 2003, as there were no advantages in not doing so. End note. The contested Article 23 will have to be reflected in the electoral law to be adopted this summer, before the fall parliamentary elections. Ethnic Composition of Montenegro - No Majority -------------- - ¶3. (U) Inhabitants of Montenegro were asked to self-report their nationality/ethnicity in the 2003 census. The result was as follows: Montenegrins: 267,669 (43.16 percent) Serbs: 198,414 (31.99 percent) Bosniaks: 48,184 ( 7.77 percent) Albanians: 31,163 ( 5.03 percent) Slavic Muslims: 24,625 ( 3.97 percent) Croats: 6,811 ( 1.1 percent) Romas and Egyptians: 2,826 ( 0.46 percent) Opposition Opposes Minority Law -------------- ¶4. (U) Predrag Bulatovic, leader of the civic opposition Socialist People's Party - SNP -- has said publicly that he opposes the new Law on Minorities. The SNP supported, and still supports, the 1998 compromise that created the four Albanian set-aside seats. The SNP told local media June 7 that it supports the idea that minorities living in Montenegro have their representatives in Parliament, but opposes the idea that minorities gain their mandates according to the Law on Minorities Rights and Freedoms adopted on May 10. The SNP instead advocates the creation of special constituencies for minorities, like the current gerrymandered constituencies in Tuzi and Ulcinj for the Albanian minority. SNP believes that all parties should be entitled to compete for mandates in those constituencies, as is the case with the current Albanian set-asides. SNP further observed that the Law on Minorities appears to allow for double suffrage by minority voters - once for the set-aside seats, once for the at-large seats. ¶5. (SBU) Bulatovic asked to see Consulate "urgently" on June 1, to argue his objections to the Law on Minorities. His argument tracked the SNP's later public statement. In private, however, Bulatovic added that he saw the "bloc" of nine minority seats created by the law as an insurmountable obstacle for the opposition to PM Djukanovic, and thus a guarantee for the DPS's hold on power. Stating that he would leave politics if the law remained in force as is, BELGRADE 00000940 002.2 OF 002 Bulatovic asked for a USG statement in opposition to the law. Bulatovic was informed that the USG considered the law an internal Montenegrin matter, and therefore had no official stance. Conversely, Djukanovic has also sought, through intermediaries, to enlist USG support for the law; Minister Hajdinaga was informed on June 6, during a meeting on this subject that he requested, that the USG would prefer not to become identified with one side or the other on this contentious campaign issue. Council of Europe - No Wish to Challenge -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In late March, Council of Europe head of office Vladimir Ristovski told Consulate that the CoE disapproved of the law's set-aside provisions, but would not move to block its passage (ref). Ristovski confirmed to Principal Officer on June 3 that the CoE would not seek to have the law revised. Comment -------------- ¶6. (SBU) While set-aside seats for minorities are not uncommon in Europe, the present law should probably be reviewed by international organizations, such as the COE and/or OSCE. Given solid minority support for Djukanovic's pro-independence stance at the referendum, Bulatovic's point that the law will create a solid parliamentary majority for the DPS has some merit -- at least in the short term. However, this does not necessarily mean that this bloc of seats will be pro-government in perpetuity, now that the independence issue is behind us. Indeed, some minority leaders have already publicly expressed deep dissatisfaction with Djukanovic's policies. Also, depending on how the electoral law incorporates the Minorities Law, minorities will either be overrepresented (as SNP claims),or underrepresented (as asserted by the Bosniak Party- ref). End comment. Text of Article 23, unofficial translation -------------- ¶7. (U) Begin text. Electoral legislation, through application of the principle of affirmative action, shall prescribe additional number of mandates for the representatives of persons belonging to minorities. Minorities who, in accordance with the last census, make between 1 percent and 5 percent of the total population shall be represented with one mandate in the Assembly of the Republic of Montenegro, through a representative elected from the minority candidates list. Minorities who, in accordance with the last census, exceed 5 percent of the total population shall have three guaranteed mandates in the Assembly of the Republic of Montenegro, through representatives elected from the minority candidates lists, provided that linguistic and ethnic specificities, as well as acquired electoral rights of Albanians in the Republic are taken into account. End text. POLT