Good morning! We continue with the analysis of Montenegro’s political offer. A party after party. We’ve already discussed the Europe Now Movement, the DPS and the Democrats. Today, we’re going to talk about the SDP.
About the SDP
“Three decades on the right side of history”, “Fighters against denationalized elites” – with these slogans and phrases, the SDP has tried to engrave its role in the democratic development of the country in the collective consciousness of the citizens of Montenegro over the past years. That role was by no means small. The SDP was an important part of the anti-war movement led by theLSCG and Slavko Perovic. Then when Slavko made mistakes, the SDP did not. In the crucial moments of Montenegrin recent history, the SDP chose the right side. This was the case in 1998, but also in 2006, when Montenegro restored its independence. The SDP was the party which gathered the Montenegrin sovereignist intellectual elite gathered.
From 1998 until today, the SDP has been in off&on combinations with the DPS in a turbulent relationship. The SDP was often branded by the opposition as the opposition in power, due to its frequent opposition to the controversial policies of the DPS during two decades of coalitions.
The biggest crisis in this relationship occurred in 2015 and 2016 when the SDP split, and then were expelled from the coalition with the DPS, which replaced them with the then Positive Montenegro. From then until this year, the SDP was not in a coalition with Djukanovic’s party, until they joined their forces in this year’s latest local elections in Oct.
The SDP is going through a long and chronic leadership crisis. The current party leadership, the Krivokapic-Konjevic duo, is having a hard time navigating the role of the opposition. Krivokapic is still the undisputed authority in the party and its de iure leader, while Konjevic runs administrative affairs. Although Konjevic is the party’s leader, the general public doesn’t see it like that. Most people who aren’t members of this party would not know exactly how to answer the question of who is the leader of the SDP.
This is symptomatic for several reasons. First, it’s a proof that Krivokapic is having a hard time giving up power within the party. Secondly, it also shows the inability of the party to find a new leadership on its own and use trapped potential in the middle generation of leaders, who have been exploited for years and are out of the focus of the public. Perhaps the best example of this practice is the fate of a student leader Mirko Stanic, who earned his first function – vice president of the municipal parliament – after 20 years of hard work in the party. The party was always ready to reward with a serious position someone who just came from the outside and did not grow within the party itself. It was the case with me, but also with Rasko Konjevic, who after his transfer from the civil sector advanced too quickly, skipping over many well-known names of the political stage who belong to other parties, in the queue for positions.
It’s not that they didn’t try to change some things, particularly after the election of Draginja Vuksanovic Stankovic as the leader, who achieved excellent results in the 2018 presidential elections. However, after a series of failures in local elections, in the 2020 elections the party barely crossed the threshold and Rasko Konjevic was elected their new leader in 2021.
However, after the elections, SDP MPs showed in parliament their talent and knowledge of procedures and they managed to seriously disturb the new ruling majority. SDP MPs rule the parliament with their knowledge and commitment. Nevertheless, they lost the important resource following the formation of a minority government, and after only several months Abazovic humiliated them by expelling their ministers from the government.
Although they demonstrated integrity concerning the fundamental agreement, they failed to leave the parliament with dignity by submitting their resignations, instead they waited for Abazovic to see them off, in the same way as Djukanovic saw them off in 2016.
Vuksanovic Stankovic still gets much larger support than the party. With her sharp performances in the parliament and strong national-oriented rhetoric, she managed to secure support throughout the protest movement. However, she fails to transfer her popularity to the party, mostly because of her colleagues who like to calculate things, as was the case in Cetinje, the pre-election coalition with URA in Ulcinj and support to Bato Carevic in Budva.
The SDP has several choices. Either they’ll try to find a new fresh energy and leaders among their own members, which is hard despite very talented young politicians and the inherited party infrastructure. Another option is to form a bloc with the DPS and the SD, keeping a part of its autonomy. The reason why I think the second option is better is that it’s hard to make a difference between the offers of the two. What is that political product and ideology, different from the DPS’s?
These three parties are the backbone of the left center in Montenegro, and they should do everything to achieve synergy and prevent the support of the sovereignist bloc from falling away. The SDP can play a key role in this merging.
That’s all for today. Until tomorrow.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer
