More than seven hours of debate, multiple breaks, mutual name-calling and heated arguments between some of the constituents of the ruling majority marked today's session of the Tivat Municipal Assembly (MA), which ultimately resulted in the adoption of a draft decision on the municipal budget for 2026 in the amount of 34,1 million euros.
The budget was adopted on the verge of a quorum with only 17 councilors from the ruling coalition present, not all of whom voted for the decision proposed by the administration of Mayor Željko Komnenović (People Win - NP). 15 councilors from the NP, New Serbian Democracy (NSD), Democratic Montenegro, Democratic Serbian Party (DSS), Europe Now Movement (PES), Democratic People's Party (DNP) and Krtoljska Lista voted in favor of the budget, while Tivat Action (TA) councilor Sanja Vuković abstained, and independent councilor Sandra Sindik voted against.
This final outcome was preceded by a debate lasting several hours that revealed deep cracks within the ruling coalition and a real public war between Parliament Speaker Miljan Marković (NSD) and Municipal President Komnenović.
Their months of disagreements and disagreements culminated today in front of all the citizens of Tivat who were following the radio broadcast of the Assembly session.
Komenović and Marković exchanged a series of accusations about who was to blame for the 2026 budget not being adopted when it was legally required - by the end of last year: was it the Mayor who submitted the proposal for that decision to parliament on December 22nd or the President of the Municipal Assembly who, according to the mayor, had previously persistently refused to schedule the session, justifying himself by the alleged untimely submission of materials that should have been on the agenda by the Mayor as the official proposer.
Therefore, Komenović took advantage of the legal opportunity and on December 18th demanded that Marković urgently schedule a session of the Municipal Assembly, but it was still held, with much difficulty, only today.
"Since the beginning of time, the sessions of the Municipal Assembly at which the budget is adopted have been held in December, if there is good will for it. This has obviously not been the case here with the Speaker of the Parliament Miljan Marković, who has acted according to the principle of whichever comes first - the chicken or the egg," said Komnenović.
It was supported by Tonći Janović (PES), who pointed out that "the budget could have been passed in December if there had been political coordination and communication", and praised the document as evidence of "good and homely work with a true vision".
Marković retorted to the mayor that the Mayor "does not respect the Assembly and the councilors", and that he did not fulfill his obligations towards the Assembly and timely delivery of materials, and that numerous associates - now former heads of municipal bodies - had left Komnenović in the meantime.
Referring to the fact that the Administrative Court has in the meantime rejected, for formal reasons, as unfounded, the lawsuit of the Tivat opposition that challenged the procedure during the election of Marković as president of the Municipal Assembly at the end of 2022, he said that the court's decision nevertheless states that the ruling majority violated the procedure at that time, which is why the opposition decided not to participate in the voting in the Municipal Assembly in the previous period.
"The reasoning behind the verdict still says that we violated the procedure then and I will never allow that to happen again in the work of this Municipal Assembly," said Marković, implying that this is what Komnenović is now asking of him when he demands that a session be scheduled before he submits the budget proposal to parliament.
"Only you deliver the materials on time, and don't teach the Assembly how it should work and make it look like crap," he told Komnenović, to which the Deputy Mayor of the Municipality, Jovan Brinić (Krtoljska Lista), pointed out that it is the practice of all local governments to wait until the last moment for the Assembly to forward the draft decision on the budget for the next year for adoption by the Assembly, because they strive to spend as much money as possible from the current budget on ongoing projects by the end of the year, and to transfer as few unrealized obligations as possible to the budget for the next year.
Sanja Vuković (TA) questioned the legitimacy of today's session, pointing out that in addition to the opinion of the Chief Administrator of the Municipality on this legal situation, which the Collegium of the President of the Assembly requested and received, the Ministry of Public Administration should have been consulted, which was not done.
She called out Komnenović for violating the Law on Local Self-Government Financing, which stipulates the obligation to submit the budget proposal for the next year to the Municipal Assembly no later than December 1 of the year in question, and expressed dissatisfaction with the executive branch's attitude towards the Collegium of Municipal Assembly Presidents.
She pointed out that, although the mayor has in the meantime made a decision on temporary financing of the Municipality, which is valid until the end of March, i.e. the moment the budget is adopted, all beneficiaries of budget funds received their entitlements on time, "the only thing that was late was the defense fees, which we only received on January 21st and 22nd."
She and Dejan Risančić (DSS) criticized some of the moves and work of their other colleagues from the ruling coalition, which, along with the constant polemic between Komnenović and Marković, who often interrupted each other, inspired Adrijan Vuksanović from the opposition Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI) to congratulate them "because the opposition should just let you settle the score yourself."
"You have gone to great lengths to schedule a municipal council session and to adopt a budget at all. A government that cannot adopt a budget ceases to be a government. You are showing that you lack elementary political homogeneity even on these matters that are crucially important for the citizens of Tivat," he said.
Vatroslav Belan (Liberal Party) stated that "the council majority and the city government have long been in a deep crisis, and this is clearly visible through today's events, various scandals, dissatisfaction, dismissals and departures from administrative bodies."
"Although you have seized upon all the anomalies of the former governments before 2020, whose time today, compared to the period of your administration, seems like the golden age of Athens under Pericles, you are not ready to acknowledge this and return the mandate to the citizens. The conflict between NP and Nova is clear and visible to everyone, and the adoption of such a budget, which is consumerist, not developmental, and has a clear pre-election dimension that proves that this game of yours is up," said Belan.
Komnenović was also heavily criticized by opposition councilors Ilija Janović (HGI) and Igor Petković (Social Democrats). Janović told him that "such a person absolutely does not deserve the capacities, effort and work" of some of the mayor's associates, that some of them have left him in the meantime or Komnenović himself has driven them away, and that the mayor is allegedly trying to plant a budget with numerous built-in possibilities for various abuses of public money in parliament for the purpose of a pre-election campaign that is certainly approaching, because the regular date for local elections is in the summer of 2027.
Komnenović accepted the PES amendment to direct 100.000 euros in the budget towards the Municipality's participation in the costs of placing children in kindergartens, but he did not do so with Marković's amendment, in which the president of the municipal council requested that the item "media services and promotional activities" be reduced by 30.000 euros and that money be redistributed to sports clubs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In the vote, this amendment did not receive the required majority among the councilors of the ruling coalition, who voted on it themselves.
The largest opposition party – the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) – was noticeably reserved today and its councilors did not participate in the debate, while the rest of the opposition councilors present (HGI, SD, and LP) announced that they would not be in the hall when the budget was voted on.
When that moment came, several government councilors left the hall before the vote, but the quorum was maintained because five DPS councilors remained in the benches.
This provoked a passionate reaction from Dejan Risančić (DSS), who wondered "is the parliamentary majority voting for the budget today or is DPS here to help you with its presence to create a majority for you?"
Risančić said that he "does not want to be in a position to adopt this with DPS present but not voting, but rather forming a majority for everyone" and asked the DPS councilors to leave the hall. To this, Nikola Došljak (DPS) told him that "no one will or can tell us whether to attend or not and it is our right to do what we think is right".
The president of the municipal council, Miljan Marković, then asked Mayor Komnenović "do we have a majority with the DPS?", to which the latter reacted violently, so the president of the municipal council corrected himself, emphasizing that he "did not mean a majority, but a quorum."
Although Komnenović invited him to put the budget proposal to a vote after an exhaustive debate because there was a quorum in the hall, Marković did not do so, but without explanation, declared a break in the work and left the hall, throwing through the door that it would last 15 minutes. However, the break lasted almost an hour, during which the DPS councilors also left the hall, so the ruling coalition had to keep all 17 of its councilors present in order to preserve the quorum if it wanted to adopt the budget. This did happen in the end, and the budget was voted on with 15 ruling votes in favor, one against and one abstention.
Marković said that the second session of the Tivat Municipal Assembly, which was also scheduled for today with an extensive agenda of almost 30 items, will not begin today and that a new date for its holding will be decided in the next seven days.
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