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Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic announced on Tuesday that he has called on representatives of the blocs that make up the country’s ruling majority to hold government reshuffle negotiations, but insisted that he must have the final word on new ministerial appointments.
“The current Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic will be the first deputy prime minister, while the nomination of the other deputy prime ministers is the autonomous right of the prime minister,” has announced Montenegrin PM Zdravko Krivokapic revealing schemes of a government reshuffle.
It is reported that negotiations are under way between the two blocs in the ruling alliance, the Democratic Front and Democratic Montenegro, which insisted that their officials must get ministerial positions.
Krivokapic said that economic stability and European Union membership must be the key goals of the new government – which unlike the current non-partisan cabinet, will be made up of political party officials, as the Democratic Front and Democratic Montenegro have demanded.
“The political parties that will constitute the new government have to put a moratorium on all issues that do not have a broad social consensus and that deeply divide Montenegrin society,” Krivokapic said in a statement.
Krivokapic took the helm as premier last December, heading a cabinet of 12 non-partisan ministers.
He formed his government after three opposition coalitions, For the Future of Montenegro, Peace is Our Nation and Black on White, won a narrow majority in parliament in a watershed election in August 2020 that ended three decades of rule by the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS
For months, the pro-Serbian Democratic Front, the largest faction in For the Future of Montenegro, has been demanding a reshuffle to bring in political party figures, accusing Krivokapic of poor coordination with the parties that back him in parliament in the appointment of police officials and the drafting of laws.
Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic, the leader of the Black on White bloc, insisted on September 17 that the new cabinet “has to be in line with the agreement signed by the three ruling majority bloc leaders last September”. In September 2020, the three main opposition blocs pledged not to seek to withdraw Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo or change the country’s national symbols.
They also promised that the new ruling majority will honour all its current international commitments, such as membership of NATO, and that it will be pro-European and pro-Western.
The pledges were made by Krivokapic, leader of the pro-Serbian bloc For the Future of Montenegro, Abazovic, leader of the Black on White coalition, and Peace is Our Nation coalition leader Aleksa Becic. / Argumentum.al
