Montenegro Political Briefing: Unexpected Crisis on the Political Scene Vojin Golubovic

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 15, No. 1 (ME)

February 2019

Montenegro political briefing: Unexpected crisis on the political scene Vojin Golubovic

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+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

Unexpected crisis on the political scene

The daily life of Montenegrin political reality that was reflected in a stable government and the unstable relations between opposition parties, which paid more attention to the attack and accusation of each other, was disturbed by unexpected events during previous weeks. What was the “black swan”?

Namely, the crisis in the political scene of Montenegro has been caused by the recent affairs of "Envelope" and "Atlas". These affairs have shaken the political public in Montenegro so much, that they are the main topic in all media and news. Namely, one businessman, the owner of Atlas Group, fled to Great Britain and placed everyday information (videos, photos, documents,...) about the involvement of the Montenegrin President, who is at the same time also the president of the largest party in the government (Democratic party of Socialist - DPS) in certain jobs that the opposition called criminal and corruption, while on the other hand, DPS leaders deny such allegations, stating that such activities and information are not covered by real facts and do not represent the truth, but the attempt of the escaped "tycoon" to conceal his criminal actions and evade justice, as he has already been indicted by the Special Prosecutor's Office.

However, it is precisely the fact that the State Prosecution filed an indictment against a fugitive businessman at the moment when he began to provide information on political corruption of the ruling party and the President of Montenegro, as well as the prosecution alleges that they do not want to examine the involvement of the President or persons close to him in the affairs mentioned by the businessman (because there is no suspicion of the the Special Prosecutor), have affected the entire opposition, a part of the media, and certain non- governmental activists, also suspecting the absence of the independence of the state prosecution and of entire judiciary system. The reaction in public was the organization of mass protests by the Citizen’s Movement called “97,000 Resist” (the name alludes to the amount of money in euros given to the president's advisor in the envelope which is shown in the video, and therefore the affair is named “Envelope”). The movement organized several gatherings across the Montenegro, including those in front of the State Prosecutor’s Office, Parliament, etc. According to the organizers, the main purpose of mass gatherings is to express the civic protest caused by dysfunctional political system in Montenegro, i.e. the system which is not functional

1 not only due to current affair, but many affairs that are not revealed from the past. Hence, the citizens movement asks for urgent resignation of not only President of the state, but also of the Montenegrin Prime Minister, Supreme State Prosecutor, Special Prosecutor, Director of Anti- Corruption Agency, etc.

These requirements certainly correspond to the goals of the opposition, and therefore, the support of the opposition is not surprising. Officially, none of the political parties are in the organization of protests, but all of them actively support protests. Hence, the question that arises, is it possible to see united opposition?

Unity of the opposition?

So far, these events have shown a unified reaction of the opposition parties, which left aside the mutual attacks and repressions and directed their focus on the mentioned affair and attack on the main ruling party and its leader. But, opposition is not unified in everything. The way in which the opposition parties want to suppress the President of Montenegro and the main ruling parties is different.

Part of the opposition sees its appearance through both, parliamentary dialogue and presence in street mass protests. In this context, a number of parties from the opposition called for an initiative to convene a session of the Parliament of Montenegro to discuss the dismissal of the President of Montenegro. The main opposition parties who pushed forward the initiative are Social Democratic Party and Democratic Front, but also Demos, United Montenegro, etc. The initiative was even supported by representatives of the ruling DPS party. Why? Probably to prove to the opposition their vain effort, bearing in mind that the DPS has the support of other coalition partners in power, and therefore the majority in Parliament, but probably also because of attempts to portray the European leaders (who have announced a visit to Montenegro), as a responsible party that does not escape, but promotes political dialogue on any ground. Probably part of the opposition is hoping for splits in the largest ruling party, because rumors circulate in the public that there is a misunderstanding in the relationship between the President of Montenegro (and the party president) and the Prime Minister (vice- president of the party). However, it is the two of them who confirmed the incorrect insinuations, so it is difficult to expect a division within the party.

On the other hand, some of the opposition parties led by the Democrats and URA continue the boycott of the Parliament and sees the struggle against power only through non- parliamentary action, that is, through mass protests. However, bearing in mind that the official organizers of protests are representatives of the citizens and the non-governmental sector, these parties see precisely their own chance, that is, they emphasize that dissatisfaction is general, and send the message that protests are not the result of a unilateral political initiative. However, the leaders of these parties are regularly present at the protests.

Upcoming behavior of opposition and government

The opposition's initiative to form a technical government is expected, due to political turmoil in recent weeks. It is likely that a part of the opposition that initiated the parliamentary debate will insist on this request, which would not be the first time to happen (2015 succeeded in creating a so-called "transitional" government that lasted until the 2016 parliamentary elections).It is logical that although the opposition is not officially the sole organizer of mass protests, use protests and placing the mentioned affair daily on the forefront and in that way attempts to gain political points or benefits that did not earn through the last election result. However, it is difficult to expect some broad cooperation among all opposition parties due to different interests and different view on the manner of attacks on ruling parties.

On the other hand, although the crisis is present in the political scene, the prime minister and the government are expected to mitigate its intensity and believe that the opposition's initiative to form a technical government is legitimate but unacceptable. Therefore, it may be expected that the rhetoric of the government will be focused on "positive things" in the coming period, such as accelerated economic growth and improving the standard of citizens, job creation, etc. However, government needs to pay attention also on the possible impact of politics on economy. The question is also how these political developments in the country will be reflected in other forms of social life, including economics? It is known that in Montenegro and the countries of the region, the economic performance of the country often plays an important role in the success of the parliamentary elections. Therefore, the question is how the possible continuation of mass political protests (which is expected) will affect the overall economic environment, which in the previous year was the basis for praising the government in public. Research on the economic effects of political instability and mass protests generally

3 indicates that the consequences of such events are reflected in the decline in the overall economic activity of the country. For example, Matta et all (2017) used synthetic control methodology, which constructs a counterfactual in the absence of political instability, and they estimated the output effect of 38 regime crises in the period 1970-2011. According their survey, a crucial factor was whether crises were accompanied by mass civil protest. What they showed is that presence of mass political causes an immediate fall in output which is never recovered in the subsequent five years. On the other side, absence of protest causes no significant effects.1 Hence, future public arguments of the government should take this into account.

The crisis is definitely present, although the authorities insist that the crisis does not exist. It is not crisis in the sense that it will be difficult to have early parliamentary elections, but it is crisis in terms of public dissatisfaction, which should be articulated. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the President himself has appeared in front of the media several times and he has been intensely trying to explain his (non)engagement in corruption. It remains to be seen whether the existing protests will be different from those organized in the past by opposition leaders and whether their intensity will weaken over time (as it used to be) or strengthen. It seems that this intensity can be decisive in terms of involvement and reaction of external factors and "advices" from the EU. For now, European officials are not involved too much.

1 Matta, S., Appleton, S. and Bleaney M. (2017) The Economic Impact of Political Instability and Mass Civil Protest, CREDIT Research Paper No. 17/03Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade, University of Nottingham