The Montenegrin parliament has narrowly chose veteran politician Moidrag Lekic as prime minister-designate in a vote backed by the parliamentary majority led by the pro-Russian Democratic Front.
Lekic was handed a mandate to form a government on December 29 on the basis of controversial amendments to the law on the president under which the parliamentary majority took over part of the constitutional powers of President Milo Djukanovic.
Djukanovic said in a written address that he would not nominate Lekic for the mandate to form a government based on "unconstitutional changes" to the law on presidential powers.
According to the constitution, the president nominates the prime minister-designate agreed by a parliamentary majority.
The speaker of the parliament, Danijela Djurovic, announced the designation of Lekic, 75, as the representative for the composition of the government with the signatures of 41 deputies.
"Djukanovic did not propose a representative, so the conditions from the amendments to the President's Act have been met,” Djurovic said.
No members of the opposition attended the session at which Lekic was designated. The margin of support was the smallest possible in the 81-seat parliament.
Before the session, U.S. Ambassador to Montenegro Judy Reising Reinke met with Djurovic to advise that the position of the United States is that the new government should not be formed based on controversial amendments to the law on presidential powers.
The amendments were adopted by the members of the parliamentary majority at the beginning of December, ignoring the recommendations of the Venice Commission, the United States, and the European Union against them.
Western partners have already warned that a government formed on the basis of such a law would have questionable legitimacy. They recommended that the political parties in Montenegro reach an agreement on unblocking the Constitutional Court and prepare for early elections.
Montenegro has been in political deadlock since August when the parliament passed a vote of no-confidence in the minority government of Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic in the wake of a controversial agreement between the government and the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Amendments to the law on the president were adopted at the initiative of the Democratic Front with the aim of giving Lekic the mandate to form the new government.
Lekic has been on the political scene since the 1990s when he was the foreign minister and the ambassador of Yugoslavia to Italy during the rule of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
As a member of parliament, Lekic opposed Montenegro joining NATO in 2017 and voted against a resolution condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine earlier this year.