site.btaMarch 1 May Bring a Denouement to Montenegro’s Political Crisis

The majority of Montenegrin MPs want a sitting on March 1, it turned out after Tuesday’s meeting of the parliamentary presidential Collegium, as 49 Members supported the initiative.

The forthcoming session has to elect a new president of the Parliament of Montenegro and discuss the amendments to the Local Self-government Act, returned for reconsideration by President Milo Dukanovic. It hasn’t been decided yet who the candidate for president of Parliament will be. Some analysts say the leader of the Socialist People’s Party of Montenegro (SNP), Vladimir Jokovic, is closest to the post. His party is expected to decide whether he will be part of the new cabinet at the end of the week.

The representatives of the SNP, the Civic Movement URA, CIVIS Citizens’ Union and parties of the national minorities signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding, did not meet on Tuesday, as had been announced. A sign that negotiations are not making much headway for now. 

The formation of a minority government, as proposed by the In Black and White coalition (United Reform Action/URA and CIVIS Citizens’ Union), was mentioned as the most probable solution to the government crisis that led to the fall of the Zdravko Krivokapic government. Political party representatives, though, are already launching different models of the executive – technical, concentration of executive power, or another type of government found in Montenegrin political practice.

In spite of the deep political division in the country, the tone has remained unassuming and a way out of the crisis is being sought. 

President Milo Dukanovic, who has 11 more days to suggest a candidate for prime minister, said he considered it would be most realistic to achieve a consensus on the election of a minority government.

Dukanovic told reporters in Brussels he was expecting “conclusive information” about the outcome of the party talks to be able to take on from there and organize negotiations with all parties represented in parliament. So that, he explained, it depended on the content of the ongoing talks whether there would be a minority government with a one- or two-year term in office that could even continue until the end of the term of the present parliament.

“The first question to me is always the organization of snap elections. If this is not the solution, then we enter the scenario of an interim, technical government, meaning that all parliamentary parties will be represented in it,” he added

Political analyst Zlatko Vujovic told the Vijesti that such a government is formed by parties that do not have a majority together and have to receive the support of other parties, which are not part of the government. Minority governments are generally temporary, transitional solutions, he added.

Montenegro had such a cabinet in 2001. 

The Democratic Front of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic is calling for a technical government that would create conditions for holding snap elections. They offer two versions of this model:  a technical government of non-partisan figures, experts supported by the present parliamentary majority and the parties of the minority, or a technical government of politicians, but also with the support of the parliamentary majority.

Technical governments are exceptions in political practice. They are a form of political compromise when a majority in parliament is impossible to achieve. A technical cabinet is neutral, its members being chosen on the basis of proven expertise and results in specific fields, Vujovic explains. 

Another example can be found in the electoral confidence government formed in 2016. It was proposed by part of the then opposition (URA, Social Democratic Party and the DEMOS centrist party), which offered five new ministers in the Dukanovic cabinet. This model, originally intended to create conditions for fair elections, toppled quickly, for part of the opposition abandoned it after blaming Dukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro of malpractice.

The concentrated type of governance consists mainly of select politicians, not politically neutral experts. Organized democracies have precise formulas that define the distribution of responsibilities between the parties. The formation of a government is preceded by a detailed agreement detailing rights and obligations, so that signatories would be protected from failure or fall of the cabinet, the expert says.

A day earlier, URA leader and Deputy Prime Minister in the outgoing government, Dritan Abazovic, said he believed that “given wisdom” they would compile a government quickly.

“And if this does not happen, then we will have no choice but to give back the mandates to the citizens and decide at the new elections who wants to govern Montenegro over the next period,” he added. 

Lawyers say there is a hypothesis in which the outgoing cabinet may continue to operate until the holding of elections, but that seems quite unlikely for now. ZH/BR