Montenegro Ruling Party To Purge Senior Ranks

More than half the senior officials in the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, will be replaced by young activists, the party announced on Thursday.

Tarzan Milosevic, a DPS senior official, told the press conference that the party's main board will have 139 members, only 60 of whom will be drawn from the previous composition. The party has decided to "promote young people", he said.

The congress is expected to reaffirm Prime Minister Djukanovic's position as party leader as he is the sole candidate standing for the post.

Following the congress, Djukanovic have one deputy after the leadership axed the three vice-presidential posts.

The sole candidate for the deputy leadership is reportedly Dusko Markovic, the Deputy Prime Minister and former intelligence chief, who is one of Djukanovic's closest allies.

The party's new statute, which the congress will adopt, will set out revised rules for officials in case of poor election results; whoever does not perform well in an election will lose their current position within the DPS.

"Any president of the municipal board who obtains a result below the level of the previous elections will be obliged to resign," Milosevic explained.

The DPS holds 30 of 81 seats in the Montenegrin parliament. The party is the successor to the League of Communists of Montenegro, which ceased to exist in 1990 when it adopted its new name and constitution.

The DPS has won every general election held in Montenegro since the first post-communist, multi-party elections of 1991.

Montenegro is thus the only state in the Balkans that has been run by the same party without interruption for more the two decades.
 

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