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Montenegro: Ruling party accused in attempting to influence the public broadcaster
NGOs say the replacement of two independent members of the RTCG board with government supporters is a blatant move by the ruling party to regain political control.
Montenegro Ruling Party Accused of Subverting Broadcaster’s Independence
By Dusica Tomovic | BIRN PodgoricaAfter sacking two members of the national broadcaster’s managing council, drawn from the ranks of civil society, over alleged conflicts of interest, Montenegro’s parliament on Friday appointed their successors.NGOs and activists voiced dismay over the appointments of former journalist Goran Sekulovic – considered close to the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.The changes means that members of the broadcaster’s council coming from the ranks of academia and NGOs can be overvoted now by supporters of the ruling DPS.“It turned out that we were absolutely right when we said that it [the changes] was an organized campaign from the ruling majority in RTCG’s Council, bearing in mind the profiles of the [new] candidates,“ Stevo Muk, from the Institut Alternativa NGO, told Radio Free Europe.He added that the appointments showed a clear intent to influence the independence of the public broadcaster.After a brief period of hope for more balance inside the public broadcaster, with the appointment of a new management in March 2017 that tried to distance itself from the ruling party and produce more balanced content, civil society organization now fear those gains will be lost.It comes also at a moment what the media production has just started to become less politicly biased, and when RTCG has even formed an investigative journalism section.NGOs critical of the recent changes note that Sekulovic, a former journalist in the once state-owned paper Pobjeda, is best known for an admiring book on veteran DPS chief Milo Djukanovic, called “The Prime Minister with Winning Spirit”.The NGO Politikon complained also that Sekulic’s candidacy for RTCG’s Council as a representative of civil society was not transparent.Parliament claimed he had been supported by 181 NGOs but declined to release documents backing this claim.“Parliament is hiding the documents. Considering the high public interest in the case, and that one of the candidates is the author of a book of homage to Djukanovic ... insight into those documents is the only way,“ Politikon's Jovana Marovic said.Last December, NGOs protested against fresh attacks and political pressure on the independence of the broadcaster.They accused the ruling DPS of continuing to interfere with RTCG, warning that this might damage negotiations on Montenegro’s membership of the EU.“They also said that, since September, the ruling party, via the Agency for Prevention of Corruption and a majority in the Administrative Committee of Parliament, had started proceedings to dismiss supposedly “unsuitable" members of the council and appoint new ones more in line with government policy.