The forceful incursion of police into the Budva city hall and detention of opposition municipal leaders have put Montenegro on the brink of conflict, Milan Knezevic, the leader of the opposition Democratic People's Party, told Sputnik Wednesday
BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2020) The forceful incursion of police into the Budva city hall and detention of opposition municipal leaders have put Montenegro on the brink of conflict, Milan Knezevic, the leader of the opposition Democratic People's Party, told Sputnik Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Montenegrin anti-terrorism police units (SAJ) surrounded the Budva city hall, fired tear gas and carried out handcuffed opposition leaders who had been blocking ruling party appointees from the building since Tuesday. The ruling coalition of socialists has been at loggerheads with the conservative opposition over the authorities' treatment of the Serbian Orthodox clergy in the country. In May, high profile bishops were detained for flouting coronavirus rules banning gatherings, including for worship.
"After the detention of the Bishop of Budimljansko-Niksic, Ioanniky and the clergymen earlier, and now the opposition, Montenegro is on the brink of conflict, and I think that if there are no sober heads and no agreement is reached and detainees released, the consequences can be unpredictable," Knezevic warned.
Since the fall of 2019, the municipal authority of the tourist capital of Montenegro has been under pressure from the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists and its coalition partners. Several attempts to re-elect local governments and change them administratively have previously failed.
"For the first time in my memory, the police are interfering and changing the electoral will of the citizens of Budva. Earlier, President Milo Djukanovic, through corruption and bribery of deputies, changed local authority. But such a crude attack on the city hall by SAJ forces, with a large number of employees in uniform and without, is not recorded in the parliamentary history of Montenegro," Knezevic said.
The politician stressed that lawmakers from the Democratic Front, the coalition headed by Knezevic's party, will seek immediate release of those detained in today's parliamentary session.
In power since the 1991 independence, the ruling party has had a fraught relationship with the Serbian Orthodox Church, who had opposed breaking away from Serbia.
A controversial law passed in late 2019 de jure transferred all church structures to the state, sparking a wave of protests.
