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.”
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.
