English

A Few Words about “Europe Now” (Party)

Good morning! In the coming days, we will analyze the political offer in Montenegro. Entity by entity. We are starting with the stars of the moment – the “Europe Now” movement.

By clicking here, you join our Viber group, where we inform you live from hour to hour about news and answer your questions directly.

A few words about “Europe Now” (the party)

“Europe Now” is Milojko Spajic, everything else is an upgrade. There is no movement without Milojko. He is pragmatic, flexible, wants to position himself on the market as progressive. Young and ambitious, he has behind him the Serbian church, the benevolent attitude of the Serbian authorities, as well as the significant support of the Serbian diaspora. It is good for him and the movement to remain ideologically undefined, to respect (or maybe use) the church which is not dominant in his performances. By staying under the ethnic and religious radar, he wants to attract the support of a wider circle of people, who see in his promises something that politicians have so far failed to sell on the Montenegrin scene, which is the future.

Perhaps only DPS and the campaign “Let’s Live Better” dating back to 1998 can be compared to this, which happened at a crucial moment for Montenegro and corresponded with the time of optimism and distance from Milosevic and the introduction of the Deutsche mark.

Although at first glance he is a populist, Spajic is very contradictory. Due to the increase in wages, he is the first on the public stage to show that by reducing fiscal levies and reducing public spending, the spending power of the average citizen can be quickly increased. And people feel that.

However, his policies and package of reforms are controversial, viewed with scepticism, and give room to accuse him of the collapse of the health care system. Lack of transparency when it comes to borrowing has also left a trail of mistrust.

Although Spajic has everything needed to succeed in Montenegro, whose average voter is not known for rational decision-making in elections, if rational decision-making does not include vote-buying and short-term oriented clientelism, his pragmatism and non-doctrinaire approach to politics are not followed by the majority of other officials of the Europe Now movement.

The uncrowned king of the future parliamentary majority has everything the Democrats lacked for success. He knows how to communicate with the world, he has strong contacts in America, and he does not have the anger and frustration that radiated from the Democrats and was articulated in revanchism.

In terms of other people at crucial positions in the movement, however, bad luck. Except maybe Odovic, who is pragmatic and unindoctrinated. The others, at least the ones we know, are very angry and aggressive in their public appearances. Milatovic shows immaturity and fails the stress test. The future first man of Podgorica has no patience, announces revenge, reacts emotionally and is a big risk factor. Milatovic’s role is what they call a sidekick in America. Chico to Zagor. Guillermo to Jimmy Kimmel. However, Milatovic is not as benevolent as Chico and Guillermo, and there is a great risk that his psychological profile cannot bear to be a supporting role forever.

Culture of resentment

Olivera Injac has a similar problematic psychological profile, as does Filip Ivanovic. Revenge approach, aggressiveness and need for revenge. All these people are relatively successful, and managed to position themselves well in the system that was politically managed by DPS. To work in institutions, at a private university, to be hired as experts when DPS needed it, and the like. Hence, all of this is resentful by definition, because it doesn’t need a logical reason to put someone in the centre of its obsessive attention.

Also interesting in this context is the phenomenon of moving the support of a flock of Twitter trolls who until recently supported URA and feigned urban support for the 30-August winners. One of them, Tihomir Dragas, earned a high place in the movement by sowing hatred on the internet. And Bojana Jokic, a civil society leader, much better known for her engagement on the networks, transferred her sympathies from URA to Europe Now. Jokic strongly supported URA, organized meetings with Muharem Bazdulj, now she openly and strongly supports Spajic and Milatovic.

It is precisely this culture of resentment, whose holders are the aforementioned people, and which has been a noose around the neck of many political parties, threatens Milojko Spajic to drag him to the bottom. Spajic does not have much time, because the unsubstantiated story of raising wages, without an economy capable of creating new value, is not sustainable. Also, this political story has no ideology, and that limits it terribly.

The Democratic Front has an ideology, and that’s why it has patience and waits. It is waiting for the populist bubble to deflate, for revanchism to fall on Europe Now as it has on the Democrats, and to emerge as an unassailable new DPS as in Budva, adhering to the folk wisdom “it is not for whom it is intended, but for whom it is destined”.

That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.

Kind regards,

Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst

Send this to a friend