DPS: now is the best time for Mandić to resign

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) today called on the speaker of the Montenegrin parliament, Andrija Mandić, to resign, judging that “now is the best time” for him to take this step, as the Vijesti portal reports, citing today’s statement of the opposition party.

In its statement, as cited by Vijesti, the DPS says Mandić’s “thirty minutes today” revealed nervousness over the fact that the issue of his dismissal has also been raised within the parliamentary majority. “In a trembling voice he held tirades about the ’90s, trying to escape his political biography,” the statement says, recalling that he, “decades later, with gray hair, from the deputy’s benches called on his war comrades to dig up their weapons.”

According to the DPS, Mandić cannot escape the present either: “Had he been sure he had the majority’s support, on September 24 he would not have avoided the session where the vote on his dismissal was to take place, nor would Parliament have remained closed to cameras and without a public determination of the quorum.” The statement stresses that Mandić now knows he “is no longer a problem only for the opposition” — his political burden is becoming increasingly heavy for the parliamentary majority as well, especially before European partners.

The opposition party asks him to stop hiding behind the ’90s, behind the DPS and tirades about his own “Europeanism”: “Now is the best time to resign, and then, without the office, the cabinets and the privileges it brings, to show in deeds how sincere his newly discovered Europeanism is.” The statement adds that “it is already clear that power is the only measure of Mandić’s claimed Europeanism,” so no one expects he would be ready to make such a great “sacrifice” and give up the chair for the sake of Montenegro’s European path.

The DPS concludes that Montenegro must not choose between Andrija Mandić and the European path: “If the parliamentary majority has put it before such a choice, let it explain to citizens and European partners why Mandić’s chair is more important to it.” The statement comes on the same day that DPS deputies walked out of the extraordinary session of Parliament, refusing to take part in what they called a “parody of parliamentary work.”