Montenegro Parliament Set to Oust Speaker

Montenegro's parliament could debate the dismissal of the speaker, Ranko Krivokapic, as soon as next week, after the ruling coalition submitted a motion to remove him.

The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, led by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, and its allies among the ethnic minority Bosniak, Croatian and Albanian parties, on Tuesday announced that they will support his dismissal.

After the opposition Positive party also said it would vote in favour, a motion calling for his removal is likely to secure a majority in parliament.

The move comes after crisis talks between the government and opposition over ways to organize the "first free and fair election" in Montenegro failed on Friday, and after Krivokapic's own Social Democratic Party party in January backed a failed no-confidence vote in the government.

As expected, Djukanovic's party then called for the sacking of Krivokapic - until January's vote a close ally of the Prime Minister.

"In voting against the government, Krivokapic's SDP ceased to be part of the ruling coalition. His dismissal is a condition that the new political reality comply with the facts and with parliamentary practice," the motion signed by 36 MPs reads.

"As a direct participant in the parliamentary dialogue [with the opposition], the former president of parliament no longer enjoys confidence to mediate the dialogue because his authority was unable to bring this process to an end," Positive's leader, Darko Pajovic, said on Tuesday.

The vote on January 27 terminated the almost two-decade-old alliance between Djukanovic's DPS and Krivokapic's SDP.

In the past two years, however, the SDP has increasingly criticized the government's performance on reforming the judiciary...