Milo Djukanovic dissolves the nationwide meeting after the PM-designate fails to kind a authorities.
Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic has issued a decree to dissolve parliament, days earlier than a presidential election.
The transfer on Thursday got here as a three-month authorized deadline expired for former high diplomat and prime minister-designate Miodrag Lekic to kind a authorities.
In response to the nation’s structure, an election ought to be known as a day after the parliament is dissolved. The president should set a date for a brand new parliamentary vote 60 to 100 days after the decree.
The parliament was dismissed earlier than Montenegrins have been attributable to go to the polls on Sunday to elect a president. Djukanovic, who has held high-ranking political posts in Montenegro for the previous 30 years, is one in every of seven candidates.
Montenegro’s political turmoil has worsened for the reason that parliamentary elections in 2020, wherein Djukanovic’s Democratic Occasion of Socialists suffered a historic defeat by a church-backed coalition.
Two governments have collapsed since, the final one in August, which nonetheless stayed on, kicking off a wave of protests and requires snap elections.
Though Montenegro’s president has a largely ceremonial function, analysts see Sunday’s vote as a possible turning level within the nation’s political woes.
Djukanovic, the architect of Montenegro’s independence from Serbia in 2006, stays the favorite. Nevertheless, he’s a controversial determine who has been accused of corruption, hyperlinks to organized crime and assaults on impartial journalists – fees he denies.
The 61-year-old will face sturdy competitors, notably from Andrija Mandic, the candidate of the pro-Russian Democratic Entrance.
The opposite two important rivals are Jakov Milatovic, a younger economist from the more and more well-liked Europe Now Motion, and the chief of the centre-right Democrats.
If no candidate secures greater than 50 p.c of the vote, a run-off shall be held on April 2, which is a possible consequence.
The nation of 620,000 folks, a 3rd of whom determine as Serbs, is a NATO member and aspires to hitch the European Union.
Through the years, Montenegro has been divided between those that determine as Montenegrins and those that see themselves as Serbs and oppose the nation’s independence from Serbia.
