Good morning! Things are changing fast in Montenegro. While Mandic and his team draw water to their nationalist mill, Spajic and PES are trying to impose an economic populist narrative. The opposition is looking for a way to channel the anger of public opinion, an emotion for which there is no better mobilizing agent. How can all this end and how can regional and global pace affect Montenegro?
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Should Parliament be Blocked? Should Trade Chains be Boycotted?
The international political order has not been monolithic for a long time, and it is questionable whether today it can be spoken of as an order in the singular at all. It would be much more precise to talk about orders. One in the West. Others around China, etc. By joining NATO, Montenegro placed itself in one of those orders, even though the gravitational field of Serbian nationalism, against which it has never built antibodies, is pulling it back into the grey inter-integration zone. This position means that our political elite is currently looking at several addresses to gather enough signals and to manoeuvre more easily in the new unpredictable geopolitical situation.
Wondering what this has to do with boycotts of parliament and shops? Honestly, there isn’t much of a direct link, but let’s see how international events can affect local circumstances. The elections in America were a big watershed and our Serbian nationalist government expected that after the victory of Donald Trump, there would be a consolidation of opportunities in Serbia and Montenegro itself and that this would enable Serbian nationalist elements to function more easily and implement their agenda. The DPS made the same mistake when they expected in 2020 that the victory of Biden in the elections would solve all their new problems.
The problem is that both of them relied too much on the events in America and that they naively believed that the particular interests of one party or one leader from the Balkans could govern American foreign policy. This is how I interpret Djukanovic’s critical review of Biden’s mandate, as a kind of disappointment. The same kind of disillusionment that we are now witnessing on the part of Serbian nationalists who will realize as time goes by that their interests and intentions are inconsistent with common sense and that no one is crazy to sacrifice world security for their regional delusions.
Although the conspiratorial mind sees conspiracies in everything and assumes that everything in the world is planned in advance, the reality is quite different. No one could have predicted that a general irresponsibility in Serbia would lead to a tragedy in Novi Sad and that it would bring people to the streets. Although many now attribute the organization of the protests to these or those, the protests happened spontaneously. The fact that today many are trying to manage the protests and put them in the service of their political goals is another matter. What is happening for the first time in Serbia is that Vucic’s rule has been totally demystified and the regime has shown weakness. Vucic is an outclassed politician and can only maintain power by sheer force.
The Montenegrin government is largely dependent on the Belgrade government, and even though the Montenegrin protests have not managed to mobilize all the pores of society like the Serbian ones, there is a serious risk that the eventual fall of Vucic could spill over into Montenegro. The question is whether Montenegro is ready for that and who in Montenegro is ready for that. When Vucic falls, we will be able to get a little rest, but certain currents within the security structures, organized crime and the Church of Serbia will still try to pull the strings. Only now with much less logistics and money from Serbia.
This will force everyone in the government and opposition to redefine their hard positions. If they do not realize that they will have to change, and that the time has already come, they will end up like Vucic in the dustbin of history. And that is why any move that destabilizes such a ruling coalition in Montenegro should be welcomed and supported.
The boycott of the parliament gives results. The boycott of retail chains, on the other hand, will hardly have any great effect, not even the one of diverting attention from the student protests that PES was hoping for.
That’s it for today and this week. See you again on Monday.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
