Duška Pejović, The Editor in Chief on TV Atlas about Political Parties Financing Project, 2010
„In the EC Montenegro Progress Report, EU wrote that Montenegro lacks strong and independent institutions, which would oversee the way money is spent and given to the political parties. Through a hard work, CDT came to very interesting data. In the researched period, from 2006 until June 2009, municipalities did not pay to the political parties around 1,000,000 Euros. While, at the republic level those liabilities are mainly paid. According to this report, the biggest debtors are Budva - around 300,000 Euros, Kolašin - around 200,000 Euros, Ulcinj owes to the parties 100,000 Euros, Cetinje 90,000, Pljevlja over 85,000, Bar around 65,000, Nikšić around 50,000. These are the values from June 2009. Is the legislation applied and in what degree, and what are the basic issues, you will find out in tonight’s show.”
Željko Ivanović, the Editor in Chief of the Daily newspapers “Vijesti” about Election Monitoring Project, 2003
„
Through large number of letters addressed to the Republic Election Commission (RIK), CDT encouraged RIK to be more active in interpretation of the laws and defining standard procedures for the other organs in charge of conducting elections.
It is clear that still a lot has to be done, but for the first time, the Republic Election Commission took an active part in educating citizens – addressing organizations, including CDT, with request to make a large size poster and 30 seconds long TV spot, the same ones that were presented in the days before elections.
Considering the fact that the results were published by the independent organization, which proved being professional during campaign, all party leaders and voters confirmed that election results announced by CDT, to the large degree, decreased tension during election night.
At the Election Day, CDT informed public, in quality manner, about mistakes in the election process and was the first one to announce the election results, only an hour after the polling stations were closed. Immediate and correct results – announced by CDT – influenced decreasing of political tensions.“
www.africanews.com – „SMS Used to Monitor the Sierra Leone Election“, August 2007
„The story of using SMS in elections as a reporting tool starts in Montenegro, a small country in the former Yugoslavia. On May 21, 2006 the country saw the first instance of volunteer monitors using SMS, also known as text messaging, as their main election reporting tool. A Montenegrin NGO, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) was the first organization in the world to use text messaging to meet all election day reporting requirements. Since then, mobile phones have been deployed in six elections in countries around the world, with volunteers systematically using text messaging in election monitoring.”
MobileActive.org - Strategy Guide #1, „Mobile phones in Election Monitoring“
http://mobileactive.org/files/MobileActiveGuide1_0.pdf
„Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) successfully monitored their country's independence referendum using SMS as the primary observer reporting tool. We believe this is the first time an election monitoring group has employed text messaging to meet all election day reporting requirements.“
