Social Democratic Party (SDP) and URA Civic Movement will run as a coalition in the local elections in Herceg Novi scheduled for 7 May.
The president of the SDP Herceg Novi committee, Dragan Simrak, said that the aim of the coalition was to stop pillaging in the municipality and to change the local government.
He said that the coalition was open to all who are fighting to topple the government and whose agenda included Euro-Atlantic integration of Montenegro.
“This coalition will form the backbone of the future government in Herceg Novi,” said Simrak at a press conference.
The president of the URA Herceg Novi committee, Nikola Radman, said that the party was committed to stop plundering in Herceg Novi.
“In this political struggle, we will focus on the economy issues and the SDP-URA coalition will come up with an agenda soon. It will be based on issues of economic significance to Herceg Novi,” said Radman.
He added that the name of the coalition is “Win is just the beginning – SDP-URA”.
URA official Dritan Abazovic said that the main objective of the coalition was toppling the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) at the local level and offering a responsible, modern government to citizens, which will make the town serve to the local population and the whole country.
He pointed out that the coalition meant that SDP and URA definitely decided to run in the elections in Herceg Novi.
“The reason is simple – other opposition political entities earlier stated they would participate in the elections and presented first candidates on their candidate lists. Therefore, we are always ready to act uniquely with the rest of the opposition,” Abazovic said.
He said he had no doubts in the opposition victory in Herceg Novi.
“At least, victory in Herceg Novi is not in question,” Abazovic said.
Asked how principled the participation in elections in Herceg Novi was, Abazovic said that there is a political schizophrenia in Montenegro, which the current illegitimate government set up.
“For these reasons, we had the incident on the last day before submitting candidate lists for Niksic local elections. Then, tensions in Montenegro were unnecessarily raised, which caused a unanimous decision by the opposition to boycott the elections in Niksic,” said Abazovic.
He reiterated that the opposition’s demand remained the same –repeating parliamentary elections and the elections in Niksic.
“The boycott makes sense only if all opposition entities participate in the boycott. Given that two very relevant opposition entities said there were no extraordinary circumstances, so it was perfectly logical to continue the election cycle,” said Abazovic.
SDP vice president Rasko Konjevic said that his party and URA had never participated in government in Herceg Novi, so they were not responsible for bad economic and political situation in the municipality.
He said that DPS government in Herceg Novi sold out municipal resources for next to nothing.
“We will not allow the Simo Milosevic institute and other valuable facilities in the municipality of Herceg Novi to be sold out to various foreign investors,” said Konjevic.
He said he hoped the citizens of Herceg Novi would recognize the guilt of those who did wrong and give a chance to SDP-URA to show a new angle of political struggle and a new attitude to the local authorities, which must be more committed to protecting the resources in its territory and creating of greater employment opportunities.
