Montenegro Protesters Offer Opposition Deal to Form Govt

It offered "a roadmap" towards "a tranquil transition", Peroviq told a press conference.

The "Agreement on the Future" proposes that the new unity government would comprise three parts: the opposition parties, some of the former ruling parties and independent non-party intellectuals.

The new prime minister would not come from the present ruling parties.

The opposition would in the meantime remain outside parliament and boycott all elections until the new government had created the right conditions for elections.

To avoid charges that the new unity government would steer Montenegro in another - pro-Russian - foreign policy direction, the deal states: "The Government of Civil Unity will not, by any activity or decision, change the current foreign policy direction of Montenegro".

The DPS-led government has long accused the opposition parties, and protest movements generally, of acting as channels for Russian influence and of aiming to reverse the 2017 decision to join NATO.

Organised by an informal group of intellectuals, academics, NGO activists and journalists, the "Odupri se!" ["Resist!"] protests began in early February following new revelations of corruption in the political elite and allegations of links with organised crime.

They began after a video clip from 2016 surfaced online that appeared to show businessman Dusko Knezevic, chairman of the Montenegro-based Atlas Group, handing an envelope to the then DPS mayor of Podgorica, Slavoljub Stijepovic, which Knezevic later said contained $100,000 to fund a DPS election campaign.

The DPS said there was nothing untoward going on, but the scandal has touched a nerve among Montenegrins over pervasive corruption and cronyism in the country of 650,000 people.