Montenegro coalition offer

Djukanovic won a narrow victory

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia -- A pro-independence party has offered to form a coalition with Montenegro's president if a referendum on the republic's status is held within six months.

Milo Djukanovic, whose coalition took 36 seats in the new parliament after provisional results from Sunday's election, needs the Liberal Alliance to form a government backed by a majority of deputies who share his hopes for independence.

The Liberal Alliance, which previously argued for an immediate referendum on ceding from the Yugoslav federation and a six-month deadline, now appears to be softening their position.

The West wants Djukanovic to abandon the idea of an early referendum and work on dialogue with Serbia, fearing any redrawing of Balkan boundaries could trigger breakaway moves in the Serbian province of Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Macedonia.

The Liberals, expected to win six seats according to provisional results, set out their demands for joining Djukanovic in a six-page document, saying the new parliament should agree at its first regular session to hold a referendum.

They also asked for three ministerial posts, including the important interior ministry, and eight deputy or assistant ministerial posts in the new government.

The U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, William Montgomery, has also been in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, meeting Djukanovic, and the leader of the pro-Yugoslav faction, Predrag Bulatovic.

"The position of the U.S. remains the same as it has been," Montgomery said. "Our preference is a democratic Montenegro within democratic and reformed Yugoslavia."

Bulatovic said he asked Montgomery for U.S. help in exerting pressure on Montenegro's pro-independence groups not to take "unilateral" steps toward secession.

On Tuesday, Swedish diplomat Sven-Olaf Petersson, leading an EU delegation, said the election's close result -- with a margin of victory of less than 5,000 votes -- was not a mandate for change.

The Yugoslav federation was originally made up of six republics -- Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Slovenia -- before the other four seceded in the early 1990s, a process accompanied in most cases by bloody ethnic conflict.

Of the two remaining partners, Serbia has a population of nine million people and Montenegro just 600,000.

Both Serbia and Yugoslav federal authorities have said they would not use force to prevent Montenegro's secession.

EU urges restraint in Montenegro
April 24, 2001
Montenegro: no strong mandate
April 23, 2001
Slim win for Montenegro president
April 23, 2001
Polls close in Montenegro
April 22, 2001
Montenegro election facts
April 22, 2001
Montenegro warned against secession
April 20, 2001

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