Good morning! The crisis over the appointment of the police director has brought this Government to the Rubicon. Spajic seems to have outdone him last night. He put the Democrats and Saranovic in their place. We will see how ready they are to put up with that place.
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Is Government collapsing?
The Democrats entered the government after leaving the pre-election coalition with URA. In that coalition, the dressing and bonus was the media sponsorship of Zeljko Ivanovic. Thus, Abazovic was given the opportunity to continue sabotaging his political opponents and remain politically relevant through the Democrats and loyalists in the security sector, even though he does not participate in the government.
The Democrats risked a lot by entering a coalition with URA and continuing this URA-behaviour, but they got nothing. They would have received the same number of MPs, and perhaps more, if they had gone to the elections themselves. This party got a package of very important positions in the government, but that is clearly not enough. They want a complete monopoly over the security sector. Europe Now Movement (PES) cannot take that much risk, especially considering that this sector, together with the judiciary, stands over their heads.
The Democrats do not work for their own interests. They fell into the trap of implementing someone else’s agenda, in this case URA and Zeljko Ivanovic, and if they continue not to take care of themselves, they will find themselves on the edge, if they are not already there. That’s how everyone ended up who didn’t take care of their political entity, their interests and agenda in the first place. Look at Abazovic, who worked more for Front than for URA. Look at Milatovic, who danced to the beats of URA and Zeljko Ivanovic. Look at SDP.
I don’t have operational data and I don’t use rumors in my analysis, so I’m not interested in whether and to which political or criminal clan the candidates for police director belong. The situation in that sector is such that it is so discredited that every police officer is guilty until he proves his innocence through his work.
For these reasons, it is less relevant who is which policeman and what kind of person he is, than what kind of political processes and power relations can be recognized in the marathon and tense appointment of the police director, which ended last night at midnight with the appointment of Aleksandar Radovic.
The Democrats have absolved political organization, but they are a de-ideologized party. A bureaucratized party. A systemic party, for which the legal state is a more important ideal than the rule of law. What kind of law will be enforced in that legal state is less important. Power is everything in their value system, with the fact that they were raised and grew up in the Balkan ancien regime where the police meant the power.
PES, on the other hand, sees power in money. Although they have no experience and their party structure is loose and elusive, they have hints of ideology. Although they are ideologically, not to say ethically flexible and flirt with all the populisms ruling in the public, they are a capitalist party. For now, the only openly capitalist party in Montenegro.
PES probably wouldn’t be dealing with all this if the politically trained police hadn’t already been used to bring them to their end, but now they have to deal with it. And they have to do it collectively, especially since Milovic was politically neutralized.
The Rubicon was outdone last night. Even after the threats of criminal charges and ultimatums, the Democrats will have to swallow the frog, or Spajic will have to take measures to rehabilitate the political damage through the government reshuffle.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
