Democracy in the electronic government era — Challenges and opportunities for development in Montenegro

Internet and ICTs are increasingly becoming key tools that enable not only access to information but multiply communication channels that extend the capabilities of Internet far beyond all recently realized performance. Internet today has a huge impact on all aspects of life including the area which is within the broader context of democracy, politics and politicians. If democracy is a free choice, there is a number of conditions which enable that in practice this freedom can be realized. These prerequisites must be met regardless of the method of voting by ballot or by pressing keys on the computer, mobile phone or "voting machines." The key contribution of ICT to achieve freedom of choice is that the technology enables the correlation of citizens and elected representatives in more qualitative way than it was possible before the Internet. In that sense, we can say that the Internet and ICT significantly change and potentially improve the environment in which democratic processes are taking place. The aim of this paper is to analyze the state of eDemocracy development in Montenegro, as well as to identify opportunities and challenges of its development.