March 16 () –
The President of Montenegro, Milo Dukanovic, announced on Thursday the dissolution of Parliament a few days before the holding of parliamentary elections in an attempt to unravel the crisis and the political blockade in the country due to the lack of consensus to form a government.
According to Montenegrin legislation, no more than 100 days can pass from the publication of the decree until the elections are held, so early elections could be held at the end of May or beginning of June, as reported by the newspaper ‘Vijesti’ .
This decision comes a few days before the elections that were to take place over the weekend and after the three-month deadline for Prime Minister-designate Miodrag Lekic of the liberal-conservative Democratic Alliance (DEMOS) to ), formed a government.
Since the 2020 legislative elections, no candidate has managed to obtain a majority to form a stable Executive that will last more than three months. In August, the Montenegrin Parliament approved a motion of no confidence against the government of Dritan Abazovic.
The fall of Abazovic, of the small environmental party URA, came after the loss of support from the Democratic Party of Socialists (PDS) of the pro-Western president, Milo Djukanovic. Since then, the political crisis in the country has only worsened.
Dukanovic, who was running for re-election in the elections called for March 19, has determined the policy of the former Yugoslav republic for more than 30 years, in different positions, by achieving the country’s independence in 2006, the accession negotiations to the European Union in 2012 and NATO entry in 2017. However, critics accuse Dukanovic of corruption and electoral fraud.
