BIRN Fact-Check: Has Montenegro’s Minority Govt Delivered Reforms?

A year on, Abazovic has his deal with the Church and can point to a string of high-profile organized crime arrests. But while the work of the Constitutional Court has been unblocked, little progress has been made on reforming the judiciary, a key condition of Montenegro's EU accession process.

High-profile arrests Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic (L) and head of Customs Office Rade Milosevic (R) in the town of Niksic, Montenegro. Photo: Government of Montenegro

Abazovic's bloc was one of three that entered alliance in late 2020 to confine the DPS to the opposition benches for the first time since federal Yugoslavia began to unravel in the early 1990s.

But after months of infighting, Abazovic manoeuvred to bring down Zdravko Krivokapic's technocrat cabinet and form his own minority administration, propped up in parliament by, among others, the DPS.

His former allies in the first post-DPS government called him a traitor, but Abazovic said the country needed to move on, and fast. The government must deal with the future, not the past, he told parliament on April 25 last year.

"The priority of this generation of politician is to work towards a compromise on the general interests of society," he said. "This opportunity must not be missed and the state must unblock its institutions."

When it comes to taking on crime, the results have been impressive, with a string of high-profile arrests of some of the most senior law-and-order figures in Montenegro.

In February, indictments were filed against the former head of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, over alleged ties to an organised crime group via her son, and the head of the Commercial Court, Blazo Jovanic, who was accused along with 10 others...