DPS submits initiative to dismiss Mandić as Parliament Speaker, calls for extraordinary session on September 24

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) has formally submitted its initiative to dismiss Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandić, and has also requested that an extraordinary parliamentary session be held on September 24 at noon to debate the item on the agenda, our portal was told by the DPS.

The document specifies that the initiative to dismiss Mandić was signed by 35 MPs.

In addition to the 16 DPS MPs, the initiative was also supported by six MPs from the Bosniak Party (Amer Smailović, Kenana Strujić Harbić, Mirsad Nurković, Edina Dešić and Jasmin Ćorović), four MPs from the Civic Movement URA (Zoran Mikić, Dritan Abazović, Milena Vuković and Mileta Radovanić), three MPs from the European Alliance (Boris Mugoša, Branislav Nenezić and Nikola Zirojević), representatives of the parliamentary caucuses of the Democratic Union of Albanians and the Croatian Civic Initiative (Adrijan Vuksanović and Mehmed Zenka), independent MPs Nikola Janović and Miodrag Laković, as well as Artan Čobi of the Albanian Forum and Ilir Čapuni.

The request for the session to be held on September 24 was supported by 29 MPs. Unlike the dismissal initiative, however, six MPs from the Bosniak Party did not sign this document.

According to Nikolić, who spoke at a press conference yesterday, the reason for submitting the motion was Mandić’s decision to publicly express condolences following the death of Ratko Mladić, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity and other war crimes committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nikolić announced yesterday that the initiative would be sent to parliamentary caucuses. He explained that 27 MPs must support the scheduling of an extraordinary session with the dismissal initiative as an agenda item.

Reading out the text of the initiative to dismiss Mandić, he stressed that the position of Speaker of the Parliament of Montenegro carries a special political and institutional responsibility, as well as an obligation to safeguard the reputation and integrity of the representative body of all citizens.

- Mandić, however, has during his term in office continuously used the authority of that position to promote views that deepen social divisions, while his actions have simultaneously undermined the reputation of Parliament and Montenegro’s international credibility. Such conduct constitutes sufficient grounds for the issue of his political responsibility and confidence to continue serving as Speaker of Parliament to once again be brought before MPs - Nikolić said.

J. B.