By Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist
This is not about Serbdom and Montenegrism. About anything national. Nor about the church.
It’s about democracy. It’s all about it.
Therefore, about freedom.
These are the facts.
1.Milo Djukanovic was elected President of Montenegro in direct elections, in the first round. His democratic legitimacy is indisputable. The attempt of the “parliamentary majority” to subsequently and unconstitutionally change the powers of the President is brutal violence against democracy and the will of the citizens.
2. Local elections in Montenegro showed that the ‘Europe Now’ Movement is the second political force in the country. The (anti)constitutional coup attempted by the parliamentary majority is directed against the only democratic scenario: that the ‘Europe Now’ Movement reaches a parliamentary presence in the forthcoming parliamentary elections that’s adequate to the support it enjoys among Montenegro citizens.
3. URA and SNP, the parties comprising the outgoing government, as the local elections showed, have practically 100% of power and less than 10% of support of the citizens. Their government has no democratic legitimacy. Despite this, URA and SNP, for the sake of maintaining power, are pushing Montenegro into destabilization, worse than the one seen in 1997 and 1999. Simply said: by force and shame, without the support of citizens, those parties want to maintain power.
4.It’s clear that the so-called “parliamentary majority” from 30 August 2020 doesn’t exist any more. A large part of their voters doesn’t support them, but support their party. The former parliamentary majority nominated Miodrag Lekic as prime minister subsequently, in defiance of deadlines and prescribed rules. He wants power even though his “parliamentary majority” is not backed by the citizens.
The constitutional, anti-democratic violence carried out by the Montenegrin government is happening, not by chance, at the moment when Vucic’s army is on the border with Kosovo. The scenario is clear. Destabilization of the Balkans is a strategic goal of Russia.
Today’s events in the Parliament of Montenegro are a logical continuation of the policy of destroying institutions and making democratic procedures meaningless, which the “parliamentary majority” has been carrying out from the first day.
It’s difficult to cherish democracy, and so easy to destroy it. The attempt, orchestrated by the Democratic Front, but carried out with the full awareness and will of the Democrats and URA, to hammer the final nail in the coffin of Montenegrin democracy, will succeed if there is no democratic, peaceful and civilized reaction of those for whose sake democracy exists, those who are protecting democracy, and thus themselves: the citizens.
