Marković Cabinet


The Marković Cabinet, led by Duško Marković, is the 41st cabinet of the Montenegro. Cabinet was elected on 28 November 2016 by a majority vote in the Parliament of Montenegro. The coalition government was composed of the Democratic Party of Socialists, the Social Democrats, and ethnic minority parties.

Government formation

2016 election

Elections for the composition of new parliament of Montenegro were held on October 16, 2016 and resulted in a new victory for the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists led by long-term PM Milo Đukanović, which has been in power since introduction of multi-party system in 1990.

Forming majority

Although the DPS failed to win the majority on its own, they succeeded in remaining in power once again, forming a government with the newly formed Social Democrats and national minorities parties.
On 9 November 2016, Deputy PM Duško Marković was nominated as Prime Minister by the president of Montenegro Filip Vujanović, and on 28 November new government was elected by 41 out of 81 members of the parliament, with the support of DPS, SD and the Albanian, Croat and Bosniak minority parties.

Cabinet composition

Party breakdown

Ministers

Controversy and affairs

In its political rights and civil liberties worldwide report in May 2020, Freedom House marked Montenegro as a hybrid regime rather than a democracy because of declining standards in governance, justice, elections and media freedom. Freedom House stated that years of increasing state capture, abuse of power, authoritative and populist leadership had tipped country over the edge, and for the first time since 2003, Montenegro was no longer categorised as a democracy. The report emphasised the unequal electoral process, cases of political arrests, negative developments related to judicial independence, media freedoms, as well as a series of unresolved cases of corruption within the DPS-led government.

Accusations of electoral fraud

All 39 opposition MPs started boycotting Parliament since the constitution of its current convocation in December 2016, due to claims of electoral fraud and that the elections were not held under fair conditions, at the 2016 parliamentary elections. They are demanding snap elections and reform of electoral laws.

The "Atlas" and "Envelope" affairs

In mid-January 2019, a video clip from 2016 surfaced in which businessman Duško Knežević, chairman of the Montenegro-based Atlas Group, appeared to hand the Mayor of Podgorica and high-ranked ruling party member, Slavoljub Stijepović, an envelope containing what Knežević later said was $97,000, to fund a Democratic Party of Socialists parliamentary election campaign.

Anti-corruption protests

within Montenegrin DPS-lead government have started in February 2019 soon after the revelation of footage and documents that appear to implicate top officials in obtaining suspicious funds for the ruling party.

Controversial religion law and protests

As of late December 2019, the newly proclaimed religion law which de-jure transfers the ownership of church buildings and estates from the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro to the Montenegrin state, sparked a series of massive protests followed with road blockages, which continued to 2020.