By Goran Popovic
The group of people suspected of the most serious crimes, still passing themselves off as Democratic Front (DF) presidency members, are displaying serious symptoms of paranoid aggression. They represent a risk and pose an obvious danger to certain citizens and Montenegrin society as a whole.
Publicly demonstrated shameless behaviour of DF leaders demonstrated so far is now threatening to grow into a mass spitting, shoving and slapping in the streets, cafes and homes, after Chetnik duke Andrija Mandic called members and supporters on a crackdown against “personal enemies”.
Only from such paranoid vision of reality, which by definition represents a sick idea of their own size and delusion of persecution against them, DF leaders have been able to announce these days somewhat monstrous constructions. Their phantasmagoria has a very wide range – from hallucinations that “Montenegro is on the verge of civil war” and “self-defence until the last bullet in Montenegro” to an exodus of Serbs from Montenegro under a kind of Oluja-style plan (Oluja – the Storm operation in Croatia in 1990s) which included “moving Serbs by trains, trucks and tractors” to… somewhere?!
The escalation of DF leaders’ mental problems
It has long been clear that such persons who are dangerous for the community should be “isolated” as in all civilized countries in order not to pose any risks for individual and general safety. But in their cases, Montenegro showed a remarkable tolerance. Pronounced altruism and commitment to the presumption of innocence of the Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stankovic, unfortunately, allowed them to rage at Montenegrin public scene.
The downward line on political rating graph further influenced the escalation of DF leaders’ mental problems. After the failure at last year’s parliamentary elections despite all the political support from some Moscow-based power centres and financial logistics manifested in the tens of thousands of dollars and euros of still undetermined origin found in the audi car of Nebojsa Medojevic’s driver and the latest failure at the local elections in Herceg Novi, DF leaders have found themselves in an unenviable situation – on one hand they have to justify their failure in destroying their own country to their sponsors, and, on the other hand, they have to defend themselves before the state authorities due to the intent to destroy the country. A mission impossible!
Construction error
But the problem dates back to the very beginning of the alliance. Since it was established, Democratic Front has had a “constructional error”. Its very name contains two terminological counterpoints – “democratic” and “front”, which points to all the controversy of the idea of its establishment.
Composed of opposed political entities, the New Serb Democracy (NOVA) and the Movement for Changes (PzP), with “imported” leader Miodrag Lekic and the newcomers from other parties, such as Milan Knezevic and Predrag Bulatovic, the alliance had all the characteristics of a political premature infant, with a very pronounced development problems.
Searching for a political identity DF theorists defined it as a political alliance with the characteristics of “conservatism, Europeanism and Serbian-Montenegrin unionism”, whatever that means. Even well-informed analysts found it hard to accurately determine what political orientation of the alliance was. It is still unknown what DF’s positions on strategic national interests are, as well as on Montenegrin independence, integration processes, economic development concept… And whether Montenegro, after their unlike election victory, would remain an independent European country or it would opt for sideways of some Eastasian integration.
Destruction as a goal
Montenegro and its future have not ever been in the focus of political association between Chetnik duke Mandic and “European conservative” Medojevic. Basic common denominator of DF constituents has solely and exclusively been the destruction of the Montenegrin state and the destruction of Milo Djukanovic and his government, with no hint of any vision of the future state status or Montenegro’s path.
It all ended in exhausting, persistently repeated tirades about “organised crime and corruption at the highest level”, fruitless fabricating various affairs and constant complaints against the state when abroad.
However, it is recognised that the initiators of establishing DF – Andrija Mandic and Nebojsa Medojevic – actually tried to rehabilitate their political failures in this new alliance. When DF was established in 2012, six years after the restoration of Montenegro’s independence, the syndrome of chronic political losers was so striking that NOVA and PzP had to stop it somehow.
In fact, NOVA’s leader realised that the party’s primary objective defined as the “project of Greater Serbia” cannot be achieved with constant 6-7% of the electorate won on Serbian nationalism.
A simple calculation, in fact, showed that most of Serbs in Montenegro votes for DPS. Therefore Mandic rushed to create some kind of broader, better to say false, civic alliance, in order for his increasingly pale nationalist political idea to survive somehow.
On the other hand, the PzP leader, faced with the downfall of his party rating, sought for a shelter in a strong political structure to avoid the unstoppable decline below the election threshold. The imported leader Miodrag Lekic and several dissidents from other parties were supposed to serve only as a virtual democratic package and camouflage for achieving Mandic’s and Medojevic’s tactical projections.
What is crooked…
However, “what is crooked cannot be made straight”…
After less than three years, DF begins to disintegrate. Its leader Miodrag Lekic then says “that the Front continues increased tendency of frequent promotion of individual policies, as well as the existence of several policies which are sometimes mutually contradictory”. Therefore, he was immediately “sent out” of the alliance.
In early 2015, Lekic, Mandic’s vice president Goran Danilovic and several DF MPs definitely left the alliance, becoming “independent MPs”.
However, disputes within DF started even earlier. Lekic’s generally moderate attitude began to bother NOVA’s leader a lot. So he hardly waited to eliminate him. Medojevic had no choice, because if Mandic wrote him off, he would stay alone. Mandic was particularly annoyed by moderate stance towards NATO integration of Montenegro.
Desperate measures
Then everything fell apart. Lekic left and founded a new party, whereas the rest of the failed political project was initially looking for a new imported leader. In this context, the former minister Andrija Jovicevic was mentioned. It did not work, so Mandic took full control over DF. In addition, he asked Medojevic to definitively abandon his agenda principles. Thus PzP did not vote for the resolution on NATO integration in Parliament.
However, these days Medojevic (whose immunity is to be lifted over involvement in organised crime) has said his party has always supported NATO and that he expected NATO to oust DPS. Then I guess it would probably bring duke Mandic to power to withdraw Montenegro from the alliance. Bravo Medojevic!
When it comes to protests, only several passionate supporters of “street revolution” support the idea.
For others, it is clear that getting in power without elections is an impossible in modern Europe, including Montenegro. Therefore it turned out that DF failed to gather at least one percent of the population of Montenegro at any of its performances in Podgorica.
This mathematically shows that 99% of citizens do not support the alliance. But they are not interested in mathematic facts.
So, provoking incidents is the only way to attract the attention of domestic and international public. They attacked police in a “democratic and peaceful” way, provoked clashes in Parliament and outside it.
Populist deceit and shameless lies
In desperation, Mandic, Medojevic and others, are constantly resorting in unscrupulous manipulation and lies in order to attract more supporters with populist claims.
Just remember unprecedented lies and fraudulent contract that DF offered to citizens. The contract specified writing off all the debts for electricity, water, utilities, taxes… But Montenegrins, Serbs and other citizens in Montenegro were not stupid.
Today’s fabrications and lies about the “civil war” and “emigration of Serbs from Montenegro” are only the tip of the iceberg, the political iceberg that is inevitably melting in the drain of a retrograde and destructive political group.
