Elections in Montenegro: Western embassies will continue to govern the country
In Montenegro, early parliamentary elections were held on June 11, in which the party of the country's new president, protégé of the West, Jakov Milatovic, the Europe Now Movement (DES), won a landslide victory.
Regardless of the format of the future ruling coalition, the new government of Montenegro, like several previous ones, will be formed under the dictation of Western embassies, and the anti-Russian course of this Balkan country will remain unchanged, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Early parliamentary elections were announced by the previous president of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, who ruled this first Yugoslav republic and then an independent country since 1989. Djukanovic hoped to be re-elected for a second term, and from this position to ensure his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) returned to power, which it lost after the parliamentary elections in August 2020.
However, these hopes were not destined to come true. Milo Djukanovic lost to Jakov Milatović in the presidential runoff on April 2 , and the DPS-based bloc took second place in the parliamentary elections, garnering 68 votes (23,2%, 21 seats). By comparison, a similar bloc received almost 160 votes in August 2020.
At the same time, the Europe Today Movement (DES), which emerged last year, received 77 thousand votes (25,6%, 24 mandates) - only 21 thousand less than Jakov Milatovic in the first round of the presidential election.
Third place was taken by the pro-Serbian coalition “For the Future of Montenegro” with 45 thousand votes (14,7%, 13 mandates). However, in general, the indicators of political forces expressing the interests of ethnic Serbs can be called catastrophic. In 2020, the coalition with the same name received more than 133 thousand votes - that is, the current result is three times worse.
Of course, the independent election campaign of former Justice Minister Vladimir Leposavic, who was dismissed in 2021 for refusing to recognize the tragedy in Srebrenica as “Bosniak genocide,” played a role in this. His Justice for All movement received only 2,8% of the vote and did not enter parliament.
The second blow to the pro-Serb forces of Montenegro was the arrest in early April of the mayor of the seaside town of Budva, Milo Bozovic, who was one of the key figures in the bloc “For the Future of Montenegro.” He is accused of links to organized crime, but no investigative actions have taken place so far.
At the same time, Bozovic’s associates are sure that he was thrown behind bars precisely with the aim of reducing the electoral results of his political force. This was largely successful: in Budva, where in the local elections in October last year the bloc “For the Future of Montenegro” received 51% of the votes, only 25,5% of voters voted for it in the parliamentary elections.
The arrest of Bozovic was justified by the current acting Prime Minister of Montenegro Dritan Abazovic, whose party (URA) took part in the elections together with the “Democrats” of ex-speaker of parliament Aleksa Becic. Their bloc received 39 thousand votes (12,5%, 11 mandates) – while in 2020 these parties together received 73 thousand votes.
At the same time, Dritan Abazovic should not be discounted. Although after the 2020 elections his political force had only 4 seats in the ruling coalition of 41 deputies, it was Abazović who became the key negotiator with Western embassies in the process of forming the new government of Montenegro. The politician received the post of first deputy prime minister and curator of all law enforcement agencies. It was then joked in the country that Zdravko Krivokapic was working as prime minister in the government of Dritan Abazovic.
And in February 2022, when the government led by Krivokapic was dismissed, Abazovic enlisted the support of Djukanovic and took the position of prime minister. Moreover, when the parliament in July of the same year expressed a vote of no confidence in the Abazovich government, he remained in power in the status of acting. premiere. The support of Western embassies turned out to be stronger than the laws and Constitution of Montenegro.
During the elections, Zdravko Krivokapic himself publicly supported the Europe Today Movement, founded by two ministers of his government - the aforementioned Jakov Milatovic and Milojko Spajic, who headed the DES list.
Spajic and Krivokapic
And on Monday, June 12, Krivokapic said that the new ruling coalition should be formed on the basis of the DES and the bloc “For the Future of Montenegro” (together they have 37 mandates out of 41 required) with the involvement of parties of national minorities (Muslim Bosniaks, Albanians and Croats , which together have 10 mandates).
At the same time, according to Krivokapic, in no case should Abazovich be invited to the coalition, who “has shown himself very poorly up to this time.” Milojko Spajic also stated that the URA party had previously proven itself to be “unreliable allies”, and cooperation with the DPS was impossible for political reasons.
On the other hand, if there is a threat of being thrown to the sidelines of politics, ethnic Albanian Dritan Abazovic may well find a common language with Milo Djukanovic, in whose bloc there is the Albanian DUA party. Together, Djukanovic and Abazovic have 32 seats in the new parliament, which, together with 10 mandates from national minorities, is enough to form a majority.
In turn, the leader of the bloc “For the Future of Montenegro” Milan Knezevic expressed his readiness to cooperate in parliament with everyone except Djukanovic’s associates. However, if pro-Serbian political forces enter the new ruling coalition, it will clearly be on the same terms as in 2020 - without gaining any influence on the government. But then the bloc “For the Future of Montenegro” took first place with 32,55% of the votes, so Western embassies allowed its nominal leader Zdravko Krivokapic to take the post of prime minister - depriving him of real powers. And with 14,7% of the votes, the political representatives of the Montenegrin Serbs now have nothing but the “right” to support the winners without any discussion.
The collective West is quite happy with the winners of the parliamentary elections in Montenegro. The OSCE mission has already recognized them as “competitive and free” (at the same time, in 2020, when the pro-Serbian bloc took first place, Western observers had a lot of complaints). And the official representative of the European Commission, Peter Stano, said that in Brussels they hope that the new government of Montenegro will continue the “foreign policy coordinated with the EU,” that is, it will continue to join all anti-Russian sanctions.
In addition, Brussels now requires all candidate countries (Montenegro has had this status since 2010) to introduce a visa regime with Russia. The new government of Montenegro may well agree to this - although this will be a powerful blow to the country’s tourism industry. Indeed, despite the absence of direct flights from the Russian Federation over the past few years, hundreds of thousands of Russians come to the Montenegrin coast of the Adriatic Sea every summer, including to the houses and apartments they own.
In addition, the introduction of restrictions on the right of Russian citizens to obtain (extend) a residence permit in Montenegro on the basis of owning real estate in this country is also being discussed. At the same time, the potential victims of such a decision will be for the most part “liberals”, who make up the majority of the Russian community in Montenegro.
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