ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 26, No. 1 (ME)

Febr 2020

Montenegro political briefing: Several colours on the face of the opposition Vojin Golubovic

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

Several colours on the face of the Montenegrin opposition

The month of February comes in the already standard form of politicization of religious issues i.e. the Law on Freedom of Religion. However, what seems to be is that such events are attempted to be used to measure the political strength of certain political parties. Still, the question is, how will this power be measured? And why is it measured?

It is clear that parliamentary elections in are likely to be in October. However, much earlier, local elections were planned in the municipality of Tivat1 (the holding of these elections also depends on the prevalence of the so-called Corona virus). And according to current announcements, some oppositional political parties will participate in these local elections, though they announced a boycott of the state parliamentary elections. Why is it so?

Given that the attempt to reform electoral legislation through the work of the Committee on Reform of Electoral and Other Legislation has failed, there is almost a certain boycott of state elections by majority of opposition parties. This is considered to be the opposition attempt to send a message that it is responsible and serious. Still, it would be no surprise that by the time of these elections, the opinion of the already shaky opposition had changed. Although the essence of the success of the opposition lies first and foremost in mutual respect, non-attack and mutual solidarity, the question is how well the opposition will succeed in this. For, on the other hand, the lack of reforms in the electoral legislation did not bother some opposition parties to announce that they would participate in the local elections in Tivat. The Montenegrin opposition has never been able to unite. Rather, it could be said that the leaders of most opposition parties are taking a stand on the common interest, pushing individual personal interests related to taking power only by themselves.

Of course, the opposition must be aware that by agreeing to participate in these elections, it assumes full political responsibility for the epilogue, that is, for the election result. For, no new electoral law has been adopted, that is, there are no substantial improvements to electoral legislation. Also, the opposition does not have the authority to implement the electoral legislation, which most of the opposition has advocated - the technical government has not been established (and it probably will not be established).

1 Planned for April 5th.

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Instead of pushing many aspects in the focus and criticizing the rulling parties in various domains, this month showed that opposition parties imprisoned themselves by dissucion only in the area of religious issues. How much do the actual religious protests influence the political range of opposition power? Although at first glance it might be said that these protests are in favor of the opposition, especially those of the pro-Serbian political parties, the whole situation can be seen through different lances. Namely, the religious protests contributed to neglecting other topics on the political scene of Montenegro. The space for political action has been narrowed because all other topics and methods of political struggle have been sidelined due to religious gatherings. Then another question arises? If so - who is the real leader of the opposition, or, who is setting the agenda for opposition parties? Leaders of opposition political parties or a religious leader that narrows the scope of the parties' activities?

Therefore, given that they do not decide on their own field of action, it seems that the pro- Serbian opposition parties do not, through current events, either improve or weaken their position on the political scene of Montenegro. The first test for such a claim could be the aforementioned local elections in Tivat municipality, provided, of course, that the opposition parties decide to participate. What could happen is rather the redistribution of opposition votes between individual opposition parties. Becsause, while the religious protests are against the Law on Freedom of Religion and against the government, there seems to be a struggle within the Montenegrin opposition at the same time, especially between the "Democrats" and the Democratic Front for domination and possible merit.

However, the mass protests triggered by the mentioned law have led the Prime Minister and entire government to start a dialogue with religious representatives, and, in parallel, to open discussions with the NGO sector, other political parties, academia and the media. It seems that if there had been no serious warning from the side of religious community, there would not have been these other conversations. This activity (call for dialogue with many interested parties), called the “Alliance for Europe”, seems to be a consequence of the awareness of the largest ruling party that the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has shown strength and that the same organization has traditionally opposed Montenegro's Euro-Atlantic integrations. On the other hand, in the face of current developments, the Government probably wants to avoid creating additional adversaries, especially in the NGO sector, whose activities may create an additional problems to power. Especially, since the views of the NGO sector are being listened to by the European Commission and those who monitor the progress of the countries that are in the process of accession negotiations. The opposition, of course, sees in this dialogue an attempt of government to simulate democracy and reform. “Democrats” believe that this

2 crisis is not going to a solution, but to an even deeper crisis. According to their view, the contentious Law on Freedom of Religion has been put in place only to obstruct the work of the Committee on Reform of Electoral and Other Legislation, i.e. not to adopt a set of measures to ensure greater transparency in the electoral process.

These developments confirm that there will be necessary an active involvement of the international community in solving numerous other disagreements and crises that exist in the Montenegrin society, such as in the electoral process, the rule of law, etc. Because the distrust between key actors on the socio-political stage is remains enormous.

The energy from religious protests can hardly be transfered into an election result in such a way that at present the strongest ruling party (the Democratic Party of Socialists) becomes part of the opposition after the elections. There are several reasons for this, and the most striking is the opposition's inability to dictate topics that will be discussed in public. It is the rhetoric ahead of the upcoming Tivat local elections and the announcement of an unconvincing boycott that supports this view. However, even the ruling party faces greater challenges than the futile threats of the opposition. And these seem to be deeper systemic problems such as the inability to elect the President of the Anti-Corruption Agency, but also the upcoming elections for the Chief State Prosecutor, Special State Prosecutor, members of the Judicial Council, etc. All this requires two-thirds of the Assembly's support, and the current situation is such that such support cannot be expected. The option for the ruling party is to account for the functioning of these institutions in such a way that there is only an acting official (instead of the president of the agency), but this cannot last indefinitely. In fact, it could work, if Montenegro does not move towards EU membership. But, Montenegro chooses to negotiate on EU accession. And, under these circumstances, the monitoring, recommendations and guidelines of the European Commission are certainly not in line with such functioning of the institutions.

Moreover, religious protests may be considered to have influenced the divisions within opposition parties to be more pronounced than before. Because part of the opposition parties certainly cherishes civic commitment and sees the state as a creation of democratic processes without the influence of religious organizations. On the other hand, some more radical pro- Serbian parties have shown that their Montenegrin identity and state are irrelevant, unlike religious dogmas that would try to drag Montenegro back into some phase of an identity crisis. It would be argued that such opposition parties do not advocate the concept of Montenegro as a civic, multi-ethnic democracy in the Western Balkans. Their subordination to the interests of Serbia and Russia is something they want to achieve political gain from. However, it is not

3 certain that they will achieve exactly that. Because, historically, in Montenegro, opponents of Montenegrin identity and Montenegrin national symbols have traditionally been losers.

Also, these parties have shown that they are not immune to the same problems that they accuse the ruling coalition for. Namely, in the municipality of Budva, in which the local government is ruled by the opposition Democratic Front, an affair broke out about misuse of state resources. Namely, the mayor, who is from the Democratic Front, has usurped half a million square meters of state land for the needs of his personal firm without the knowledge of state authorities. Such scandals also point to the potential behaviour of leaders of that opposition parties in case they take a power. Probably, the same problems will be discussed. Therefore, all these developments will hardly support Democratic Front in winning additional votes.

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