The PM stated he had offered opposition political entities to enter the executive branch after confidence vote in the 40th Montenegrin government on 27 January 2016, in order to create conditions for strengthening trust in the electoral process.
“After months of political dialogue and the signing of the agreement on free and fair elections on 26 April, a number of opposition political entities that signed the agreement proposed candidates for the members of the government. Thus, conditions for proposing changes in the composition of the 40th government of Montenegro are created”, the PM said.
In accordance with Article 176 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament of Montenegro, Djukanovic proposed dismissal of finance minister Radoje Zugic, PhD, the minister of labour and social welfare Zorica Kovacevic. He also proposed appointing Milenko Popovic, PhD, as the deputy prime minister, Goran Danilovic as the interior minister, Rasko Konjevic as the finance minister and Boris Maric as the minister of labour and social welfare.
Thus Djukanovic accepted the list proposed by Demos, URA and SDP, whereas he did not select any SNP members to be ministers in the government.
SNP has conditioned signing the agreement with getting of two ministerial posts. SNP previously proposed Radivoje Rasovic for the minister of agriculture, whereas the deputy president of the party Aleksandar Damjanovic rejected to be a candidate for finance minister.
The PM said on Friday that he considered SNP as a signatory of the agreement.
He said he respected the fact that Demos, URA and SDP had earlier signed the agreement and that the Positive Montenegro (PCG) had been the initiator of this document.
“But I also respect that the SNP party bodies, a couple of days later, decided to sign the agreement. Whatever the epilogue regarding the election of the government is, I think that signing the agreement is very good for a democratic development of Montenegro”, Djukanovic said.
After Djukanovic submitted his proposals to the Parliament, the ball is in opposition’s court.
“They need to think in terms of their interests and responsibilities of their own parties for the democratic development of Montenegro”, Djukanovic said referring to the opposition representatives.
After this decisive step, the conditions have been met for holding a session of the Parliament at which lex specialis, the government reshuffle and Ranko Krivokapic’s dismissal should be discussed.
The president of SDP, Ranko Krivokapic, said on Friday that there was only one opposition list with candidates for ministers in the government of electoral trust. He added that SDP, Demos and URA wanted SNP to enter the government too.
