Montenegro’s parliament elected a new pro-Western government on Thursday. 45 of the 81 deputies voted in favor and three against the decision. However, eco-liberal prime minister Dritan Abazovic leads a minority government. The colorful coalition of Greens, Social Democrats, ethnic Albanian and Bosnian parties and a pro-Serb party depends on the tolerance of President Milo Djukanovic’s DPS party.
“The rule of law and economic development will be the two central pillars of the new government,” Abazovic said in his program statement ahead of the vote. His office will “unlock the institutions” and move forward with negotiations on EU membership. The parliament session was moved to the historic capital Cetinje. Deputies from the other pro-Serb parties boycotted them. They deemed the circumstances of their project to be illegal.
prehistory
The Abazovic government replaces a predominantly pro-Serb government under Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic. Her successor had belonged to her as Deputy Prime Minister. Irreconcilable differences between pro-Serb and pro-Western liberals paralyzed this government. The change of government finally allowed Abazovic to break with Krivokapic.
For more than 30 years, pro-Western President Djukanovic and his DPS party have determined the country’s policy, which led to Serbia’s negotiated independence in 2006. At the same time, his government has been criticized for corruption, links to organized crime and attacks on independent journalists. In the parliamentary elections of August 2020, the DPS lost its majority in parliament for the first time and had to enter the opposition.
Krivokapic’s government, formed in December 2020, included grassroots movements like Abazovic’s URA party, but was predominantly pro-Serb. A pro-Serb agenda soon took the place of the rule of law and European integration. Accession negotiations with the EU, which started in 2012, have not progressed in the last two years.
precarious future
Under nationalist President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia is striving to exert dominance over the region through the instrumentalization of ethnic Serb groups. In Montenegro, about 30% of citizens declare themselves to be Serbs.
The Abazovic government faces a very precarious future. The National People’s Party of Serbia (SNP) has one of four deputy prime ministers and six of 18 ministers. At the same time, Djukanovic, who as president has only formal powers, has regained decisive influence through the DPS he led.
Marko Pejovic, an analyst at the Cedem think tank in Podgorica, does not expect the new coalition to last long. “If a government depends on the support of 30 deputies out of 46 and those 30 deputies are part of a party that is not part of the government itself and against which Abazovic has been conducting politics for many years, then you can imagine how stable this party is. the government will be,” he told euronews.rs.