Montenegro faces more political instability and an interim cabinet or snap elections after Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic’s government fell victim to the in-fighting that dogged it from the start.

Montenegro Government Toppled by No-Confidence Vote

Montenegrin PM Dritan Abazovic. Photo: Government of Montenegro

Montenegro’s coalition government collapsed on Friday after parliament backed a vote of no-confidence called by the party of President Milo Djukanovic and smaller parties in the ruling coalition, worsening the country’s political instability.

The administration led by the leader of the green movement URA, Dritan Abazovic, became the government with the shortest period in power in Montenegrin political history – it only came to office in April.

The government was ousted by the votes of 50 MPs in the 81-seat parliament.

The vote signaled the end of the political alliance between Abazovic and the Democratic Party of Socialists, headed by veteran leader Milo Djukanovic, which lost power in August 2020 after three decades in office, but in April started supporting Abazovic’s administration.

“What is happening now in Montenegro will have one outcome, either Milo Djukanovic or Dritan Abazovic will disappear from the political scene. This is a political conflict in which someone must be defeated,” Abazovic told parliament minutes before the confidence vote.

Before the vote, in a long and occasionally angry address to parliament, Abazovic accused organised crime groups that smuggle cigarettes and cocaine of funding some of the political groups behind the confidence vote.

“There is only one problem and that is the cigarettes that have been confiscated in the port of Bar,” Abazovic claimed.

In recent years, in several large-scale police and customs operations, Montenegro has seized several hundred tons of smuggled cigarettes and more than two tons of cocaine in the port of Bar.

Abazovic also said that some news websites in the country are funded by money from smuggling, but faced sharp criticism from some MPs for attacking media that report on his government critically.

In the heated debate on Friday, Abazovic also accused Montenegro’s current president and seven-times premier since 1991, Milo Djukanovic, of trying to create political instability and “pushing Montenegro into big problems and into disappearing”.

The confidence motion was triggered by Abazovic’s junior coalition partners after the government signed a disputed ‘fundamental agreement’ with the Serbian Orthodox Church on August 3.

While pro-Serbian parties praised the signing of the agreement, two governing coalition partners – Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS and the Social Democratic Party, SDP – called for early elections, saying the document was signed without a wide consensus.

“We will initiate a no-confidence motion in parliament and call for early elections. This agreement is against the constitution of Montenegro and will be suspended immediately after the election of a new government,” the DPS said.

In the initiative filed a few days later, the parties said that Abazovic’s administration had not made progress in the implementation of judicial reforms and the fight against organised crime and corruption, and claimed that the state of the Montenegrin economy and the epidemiological situation in the country have further worsened.

But on Friday, Abazovic said that he would sign the agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church, SPC, again.

“I did not do this because of the power but because of the citizens, especially the Orthodox people in Montenegro. I would do it again, I do not need praise. But if someone wants to make the new majority with the DPS, do not invite us anymore,” Abazovic said.

“If you support the confidence motion that was filed because of the vote for the agreement with the church, if someone supports demeaning the people who are at the top of the SPC and calling them names – congratulations, I won’t do it, I’m not part of that story,” he said.

Abazovic had previously said that if there wasn’t a vote of no confidence in his government, he would immediately begin its reconstruction and that there would be no place for the DPS and SDP, his current partners.

The previous Montenegrin government, led by Zdravko Krivokapic, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament on February 4 this year, after only 14 months in power.

There will also be another no-confidence vote on September 2. It includes a motion to oust parliament speaker Danijela Djurovic and is backed by the opposition Democratic Front, Movement for Changes, Democratic Montenegro, DEMOS and True Montenegro.

Source link: balkaninsight.com