Fear of an electoral debacle looming in Nikšić is the only reason why the majority has taken away the opposition's right to ask questions during the Prime Minister's Hour in the Parliament, said today the head of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) parliamentary group, Andrija Nikolić.
He said at a press conference in the Parliament that the "cowardly and anti-European parliamentary majority" has shown that it is ready to do anything to overcome its fear in the run-up to the elections in Nikšić, aware that the "clock is ticking" and that the end of the support they received in the recent parliamentary elections is approaching.
"We have a parliamentary majority that is doing everything it can to prevent the parliamentary opposition from speaking. You will remember, first they were running away from the prime minister's hour. We did not hold four prime minister's hours last year, thanks to the fact that Prime Minister Milojko Spajić avoided it. So they then dragged out the decision on the parliamentary opposition's initiatives to hold certain control hearings for an inappropriately long time, until those topics completely lost their relevance," Nikolić said.
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He added that they talked for days in the Montenegrin parliament about European integration, about the need for parliamentary democracy to be inclusive, "and then they decided to abolish parliamentary democracy."
He said that the opposition attended a session of the collegium of the Speaker of Parliament five days ago, agreed on the appointment of the Prime Minister's Office, and no one informed them at the time that the MPs who were suspended would not be able to ask questions as part of parliamentary questions.
"They did that last night, they did it by trampling on the rules of procedure, because we were ordered to be suspended without a prior warning for taking the floor. Of course, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure and the explanation we received from the office of the President of the Assembly, it referred exclusively to the suspension measures imposed on members of the parliamentary opposition, which entailed absence from plenary sessions for 15 working days. There was no announcement that the parliamentary opposition, or the members of the parliament who were suspended, would be prevented from asking parliamentary questions," said Nikolić.
According to him, this is a new invention of someone who remembered "at five to twelve" that it would be too damaging for the parliamentary majority to answer numerous sensitive questions in the run-up to the elections in Nikšić.
"They were supposed to answer some of the questions, I will remind you of a few of them," said Nikolić.
He stated that one of the questions why the Administrative Board put on hold for an inappropriately long time was the need to decide on the lifting of the immunity of the Mayor of Nikšić Municipality and New Serbian Democracy MP Marko Kovačević.
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"Where has the investor from the Nikšić Steel Plant disappeared? How many workers were employed at the Electric Power Company of Montenegro from 2020 to 2024? How much money has been paid out on that basis, usually to the detriment of those who deserve it, and therefore we have a price increase as a reflection because unproductive consumption is growing. How many duplicate voters from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, have managed to identify and delete from the electoral roll of Montenegro? What has been done to combat the problem, the biggest problem, of long waiting lists in the healthcare system, because of which Montenegrin citizens are increasingly going to private providers, managing, borrowing money, because the healthcare system is unable to meet the basic needs of our people?" he said.
The opposition's questions are also how much the PIO Fund deficit is for the first two months due to the reduction in pension and health insurance contributions by the decision of the Montenegrin government, and whether there is money to pay salaries and pensions without new debt.
"These are topics that the parliamentary majority does not want to talk about. They have come up with an idea through which they want to preserve some of the political rating that is left. That the survey committees substitute the work of the plenum, that the parliament is locked down and then that they harass and abuse the victims in order to make political profit in the run-up to the elections in Nikšić," said Nikolić.
He said that there is a provision in the Rules of Procedure that clearly stipulates that MPs can be removed from the plenary session without first being ordered to take the floor.
"In this case, the parliamentary opposition MPs were directly suspended. And the explanation we received on this occasion refers exclusively to the inability to attend sessions in the next 15 working days. Some unofficial information has also emerged that the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament are discussing this problem, or whether or not to allow it," said Nikolić.
He said that whether the opposition is in parliament during parliamentary questions or not, it will not prevent them from speaking about all the issues that we planned to raise during Prime Minister's Hour and parliamentary questions.
"Our MPs who are not under measures will certainly exercise their procedural rights to participate in the session dedicated to the Prime Minister's Hour and parliamentary questions. Local elections will only be local elections when the influence of our neighbors in the electoral process in Montenegro stops and when the import of voters is prevented. We are telling voters from the Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina not to travel to Montenegro to vote in the elections in Nikšić because we will not allow them to do so," he said.
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