Montenegro About to Resolve a Dilemma

Democratic Party of Socialists Wants the Elections

The departure of the People's Party from the coalition "For Better Living" opens numerous possibilities for new political alliances. However, the recent offer of the Democratic Party of Socialists for early elections has caused a new confusion

AIM Podgorica, January 9, 2001

First, there will be early parliamentary elections, and then the referendum, or vice versa? This current Montenegrin political dilemma has not been clarified yet. But with the latest move of the party of Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic it was hinted that the advantage might be given to the elections. On the day after Christmas, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) proposed to other parliamentary parties an agreement on scheduling early parliamentary elections by the end of March this year on condition that all participants take the obligation that the newly-elected parliament will schedule the referendum on state and legal status of Montenegro. That should satisfy all appetites.

Until just recently, while the Montenegrin ruling coalition was complete, only the Socialist People's Party (SNP) of Momir Bulatovic, the angry opposition in Montenegro and the partner of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia in the federal government, was in favour of early elections. When the People's Party (NS) crossed over into the opposition after the decision of Montenegrin Government to offer Belgrade a union of internationally recognised states of Montenegro and Serbia, the front of political parties which give priority to early elections over the referendum has gained in strength.

The Populists of Dragan Soc have started equally loudly as the Socialists of Momir Bulatovic to threaten with an anti-referendum campaign and to demand elections. Besides, the ones and the others have refused to participate in the preparations of a new law on referendum and rules according to which state media would behave before the citizens directly declared their will concerning the Montenegrin state issue.

The remainder of the ruling coalition (DPS and the Social Democratic Party -SDP) could have chosen between two possibilities. The first was to ignore threats and demands of the SNP and the NS, persuade the Liberal League to support their minority government and schedule the referendum, as they had promised. The other possibility was - to meet the demands of the opposition.

It was assumed that the possibility of winning over the Liberals for cooperation would be attempted first, especially because they had manifested readiness to accept it. There were two reasons why this has not happened – the unacceptable conditions of the Liberals and disunity within the DPS itself.

The Liberal League conditioned its support to the minority government by fulfillment of the demand that in the referendum the citizens be asked to answer the following clear question: "Are you in favour of Montenegro being an independent, internationally recognised state", with an additional promise that such Montenegro would not enter any alliances with other states, meaning primarily Serbia. In case they had accepted the demands of the Liberals, the DPS and the SDP would have denounced their own platform on future relations of Montenegro and Serbia before they even started negotiating about it with the new Serbian government. They would have appeared to be not just political frivolous, but also insincere.

The second reason why the DPS and the SDP have not first tried to ensure the parliamentary support for their minority government should be sought in the fact that the leadership of the DPS is not united about what would be wiser to do and that among the deputies of this party in the Assembly of Montenegro there are a few who are not completely trustworthy. Connoisseurs of the situation in the ranks of the DPS assess that five or six deputies might at a crucial moment vote against the decision to schedule the referendum.

Vice President of the DPS Svetozar Marovic, who usually has an additional argument concerning some delicate problem, estimated in an interview for Belgrade Blic daily that "the government needs the support of the people and not just of the parliament" and that the elections before the referendum "are a more legitimate and more stable solution". Indeed, Marovic's political logic can be recognised in what the DPS proposed to other parliamentary parties. The aim is in fact to win over the SNP and the NS for cooperation in scheduling and conducting the referendum by meeting their demand that the referendum be preceded by early parliamentary elections. In that case there would be no boycott of the referendum, which according to Marovic's assessment could throw a "shadow" on its outcome and cause "possible doubts in the democratic world".

But apart from the wish to win over the SNP and the NS with this move of the DPS which was supported by the SDP, it seems that these two parties wish to bring things out in the open. They demanded elections and they are offered them. The ball is now on their part of the field. If they refuse the offer or even start criticising it, they would in fact bring points to those who made the offer and give them an alibi to carry out the other possibility with the Liberal League as the ally in the parliament.

President of the Executive Board of the DPS Miodrag Vukovic says that the Populists have already been won over which could be concluded from the first declarations of the leaders of the party. The first reaction of Vice-President of the SNP Predrag Bulatovic was a mixture of acceptance and rejection - he welcomed the fact that the DPS proposed scheduling the elections before the referendum, but not the deadline for their taking place. Bulatovic did not know what to say about the part of the proposal which conditions the agreement on the elections with the obligation to schedule the referendum after these elections. Miodrag Vukovic assesses on this basis that the SNP will obstruct the agreement suspecting of that not Predrag Bulatovic but the President of the party Momir Bulatovic who, he says, has regained control of the SNP and the other Vice-President, Zoran Zizic, the current federal Prime Minister.

Bearing in mind the possibility that the matter would not take a favourable turn, Vukovic mentions that the DPS has not determined its moves in advance and that, as far as they are concerned, "all options are opened", with one of them being realised now while the others may also be carried out anytime, in other words as soon as definite stands of the SNP and NS are known. And they cannot take indefinitely for that. The DPS has given them a week to think the proposal over.

The time has started to tick, so one will not have to wait for long for the resolution of the dilemma about the options the citizens of Montenegro will first have to face - the elections or the referendum. At first sight it may seem that it does not matter, because the elections will be a specific type of a referendum. But from the aspect of those who prefer the Montenegrin state independence and international recognition, the elections before the referendum are experienced as a surrender in advance. "If the elections will take place first and then the referendum, there will be no chance for Montenegro", said political leader of the Liberal League Miodrag Zivkovic and repeated this after the DPS had publicly stated its initiative on scheduling early elections. Some political analysts in Podgorica also reflect in this way, assessing like Rade Bojovic from the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights that this works in favour of the "unitarianists" and "Kostunica's legalists" in Montenegro.

One should not disregard, however, that the DPS has also its own interest in mind when it chooses the elections before the referendum. In case it achieves worse results in the elections than it expects, it will have enough time to correct its stands and mitigate them in negotiations with Belgrade. Should it be defeated in the referendum, the chances for correcting the political course would be greatly reduced.

Dragoljub VUKOVIC

(AIM Podgorica)