DPS announces boycott of population census

(Patria) - The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) will boycott the upcoming population census in Montenegro after their request for a six-month postponement was not adopted, the party confirmed to Radio Free Europe (RSE).

They requested the postponement in order to create the institutional conditions for holding this process, given that the Government has not been formed, nor the parliament constituted in Montenegro, four months after the parliamentary elections.

DPS, led until recently by Milo Đukanović, is a sovereignist, pro-Montenegrin party that was removed from power after three decades in 2020. Since then, a predominantly pro-Serbian bloc of parties, led by the Democratic Front, has been in power.

Because of this, DPS suspects that abuses by the pro-Serbian authorities, who are organizing the census and seeking its control, are possible. At the same time, for months, pro-Serbian forces and media have been campaigning, calling on citizens to declare themselves as Serbs.

The last to join the campaign was the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, who on October 14 called on citizens to "express their identity as Serbs".

Calls for the census to be postponed after the political stalemate in the country ends were also made on October 18 by a Resolution of the European Parliament.

The start of the fifteen-day census is scheduled for November 1, and non-governmental organizations and national minority councils are also requesting a postponement.

This request was rejected by both the Government and the President of Montenegro, Jakov Milatović.

According to the last census in 2011, 45 percent of Montenegrins, 29 percent of Serbs, 9 percent of Bosniaks, 5 percent of Albanians, 3 percent of Muslims, and one percent each of Croats and Roma live in Montenegro.