Milatović responds to Mandić’s message: “I will not interpret what he has in mind” — parliamentary elections between April and June next year

Montenegro’s President Jakov Milatović responded today to the statement by Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandić, who said a day earlier that six months remain until the parliamentary elections. “I will not interpret what Mandić has in mind,” Milatović told reporters in Podgorica after the conference “Local Self-Government Reform on the Road to the EU,” organized by the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro, as Vijesti reports.

According to him, parliament was constituted in July 2023, which means the elections would have to be held in the April–June period next year — the constitutional deadline. “As befits democratic practice, I will have a conversation with all representatives of the parliamentary parties, and after those talks I will call regular parliamentary elections,” he said. Local elections will also be held in June next year.

Milatović gave two messages: first, no one in Montenegro must be an obstacle to the country’s European path; second, institutional irresponsibility must not be answered with institutional irresponsibility, as that only deepens the crisis. “Montenegro needs democratic maturity and stability to carry this process through to the end. Montenegro’s full EU membership by 2028 is what the overwhelming majority of citizens want,” he was quoted as saying.

He also warned of a “paradoxical” situation: if elections were called tomorrow, there would be no institution in the country able to organize them, since nothing has been done in the context of electoral reform. “I call on the members of parliament to resolve this situation as soon as possible, because the full responsibility falls on them,” Milatović said, according to Vijesti.

The statement comes at a moment of institutional tension, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives in Montenegro as part of her regular tour of Western Balkan countries — she will also visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Albania, and will take part in the opening of a new center for Montenegrin border control.