Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) MP Nikola Janović left the party today, resigning from all positions in it - "Vijesti" has learned.
Janović was a member of the Main Board of the DPS. Until March of this year, he also held the position of a member of the party's Presidency. He has been its MP since 2020.
He served as Minister of Sports and Youth in the Government from 2016 to 2020. He achieved great success as a water polo player.
"I continue to be dedicated to the values and ideas that I believe in unreservedly," Janović wrote on Iks.
In a letter sent to the DPS Main Board and the party's president, Danijela Živković, which he published on the social network, he wrote that he would continue his political career as an independent MP.
"Based on Article 23 of the DPS Statute, I inform you that I am no longer a member of the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro. Accordingly, my membership in the Main Board also ceases. I also inform you that the DPS can dispose of my seats in three parliamentary committees - the Committee on Security and Defense, the Committee on Anti-Corruption and the Committee on International Relations and Emigrants. I will continue my political activities as an independent MP. Regardless of the differences we had in our thoughts on the future of the DPS, I would like to thank you for the fair and meaningful cooperation and wish you all success in your future life and work," Janović wrote.
Criticized the party, skipped Congress, voted "against"...
Janović has repeatedly criticized the situation in the strongest opposition party, as well as its moves, over the past two years, often voting "against" the DPS.
Among other things, at the end of November 2023, on the eve of the DPS elections, he said that the party "must make a shift in approach and thinking."
"When a (bad) reputation kills you, then it doesn't matter to you afterwards... I consider that partly the fault of the DPS because it failed to defend itself from that narrative, just as I consider it the responsibility of the DPS now that the DPS was synonymous with everything bad that was happening," said Janović.
In those days, he also said that the party did not fare well as an opposition party and that the perception remained that the DPS was still an undesirable party for any coalition.
At the end of that year, he said that DPS should not deal with issues of national divisions, counting, and aligning itself into opposing political camps.
Although there was public speculation at the time that Janović could run for the position of head of the DPS, following the departure of Milo Đukanović from the party leadership, he did not run for that position.
After the party elections and the arrival of Danijel Živković as the leader of the DPS, Janović announced that the party's rhetoric needed to change, but also to implement real reforms. He assessed that the DPS election campaign was useful in homogenizing the party, but that no substantive changes had taken place.
At the beginning of the year, on the eve of Đukanović's election as honorary president of the DPS, Janović stated that "the concept of honorary presidents... in any party is not particularly familiar to him", and that the introduction of this title leaves "it to someone's imagination and the propaganda of other parties to draw their own conclusions and additionally spin and impose a narrative in the public space, for which there is no need".
In February, although he was a high-ranking DPS official at the time, Janović did not attend the party congress where the leadership of that political organization was elected.
This spring, he was the only DPS MP to vote against the adoption of an agreement between the governments of Montenegro and the United Arab Emirates, which stipulates that the government of that Middle Eastern country proposes and guarantees for private investors to cooperate with the Montenegrin government on the implementation of two tourism projects in the north and south of the country, with the written consent of the executive authority in Podgorica.
During the decision on the issue in parliament, the other DPS deputies left the plenary hall.
Recently, commenting on the case of hate graffiti against Bosniaks in northern Montenegro after the fall of the DPS government in the 2020 elections, he said that he could not understand how anyone could have "thought of it".
After the elections, police officer Petar Lazović organized for Pljevlja to be painted with Serbian symbols, in order to, according to decrypted Sky app communications, provoke interethnic intolerance in that city.
"Whoever did it, there is no excuse. That's what I think about the graffiti from 2020...", said Janović in early November, while appearing on the show "Colors of the Morning" on Television Vijesti.
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