2019 Montenegrin anti-corruption protests

In 2015, the investigative journalists' network OCCRP named Montenegro's long-time president and Prime Minister Milo Đukanović "Person of the Year in Organized Crime";[6] five years prior the British daily The Independent placed him on a list of the world's top 20 richest leaders, describing the source of his wealth as "mysterious".[7] Đukanović denies most of the claims about his wealth. In 2016, Vice President Svetozar Marović of Đukanović's Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) was arrested in connection to a long-running corruption case concerning his hometown of Budva; the Montenegrin prosecutor's office labeled him as "head of Budva criminal group," which he later admitted in court.[8]

In mid-January, a video clip from 2016 surfaced in which President Đukanovićs former ally, businessman Duško Knežević, chairman of the Montenegro-based Atlas Group, appeared to hand the Mayor of Podgorica and high-ranked DPS member, Slavoljub Stijepović, an envelope containing what Knežević later said was $97,000, to fund a Democratic Party of Socialists parliamentary election campaign.[9] After fleeing to London, Knežević told the media he had been providing such unreported money to the DPS for the past 25 years.[10]

Another video Knežević released in February showed a senior Montenegrin Central Bank official asking for a bribe for not sending inspectors into one of Knežević's banks.[11] He has also released documents claiming proof that he helped finance Đukanović's lavish travels abroad and his personal expenses.

In early May 2018 Olivera Lakić, an investigative journalist from the Montenegrin daily newspaper Vijesti, was shot and wounded in front of her house in Podgorica after she published a series of articles about allegedly corrupt businesses involving top state officials and their families.[12] The identity of the shooter is still unknown.[13]

All 39 opposition MPs (out of 81 in total) are boycotting Parliament since the constitution of its current convocation in December 2016, due to claims of electoral fraud at the 2016 parliamentary elections.

Opposition started demanding a snap elections and reform of Montenegrin electoral system, as well the electoral laws. The largest opposition subject, Democratic Front (DF), decided to end the boycott and return to parliament in December 2017, as did newly formed United Montenegro (UGC).[14] The Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the DEMOS both decided to end the boycott and return to parliament, after poor results in May 2018 local elections, as did Socialist People's Party (SNP) leaving Democratic Montenegro (DCG) and United Reform Action (URA), who remained in the boycott with the same demands.[15]

Organizers accuse President Milo Đukanović of presiding over poverty, a loss of human rights and media freedom, partocracy and systematic corruption. The organizers' main demands are his resignation, but also of Prime Minister Duško Marković and his cabinet, to form a technical government that would prepare the conditions for free and transparent elections. They seek the resignation also of the State Prosecutor Ivica Stanković, and the chief prosecutor for organized crime Milivoje Katnić, accusing both of ignoring evidence and not prosecuting manifest corruption in the ranks of Đukanović's inner circle.[22] Protesters later demanded irrevocable resignations of the Montenegrin state-owned broadcaster, its council and the director general, accusing them of partiality and ruling-party propaganda.[23][24]