Good morning! URA has found courage and offered publicly what we have all heard about over the last few months, DF criticizes with restraint, the Prime Minister is silent for now, and the loudest in criticism are Milacic and the Democrats. The SNP in principle supported the idea of the presidency meeting, whereas it’s unknown what the main board will tell. Another win of the handball team.
First, to mention two reviews on the situation by my colleagues – Andrej’s column which went viral on social media yesterday. Second, our boss, Boris Darmanovic, commented on the current situation for Gradska TV in one of his rare public appearances.
Minority government
Dritan Abazovic is on the verge of making the first statesmanlike decision in his career, not to rob the populism and popularity and take the destiny of his party and this country in his hands. His party’s main board surprisingly unanimously backed him. His coalition partners from CIVIS, as well as Dr Srdjan Pavicevic, who was standing next to him at the news conference yesterday and defended their joint proposal, also backed him.
The key message is that the proposed government shouldn’t include the Democratic Front (DF) and the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), but that they expect support of both. Everyone was invited to support the new government, and the DPS can back it even without the DF and Democrats. Some of the memorandum signatories supported it, including the SNP, which welcomed URA’s initiative at the session of their managers. Now we’re waiting for the decision of the main board in order to have the SNP’s formal support.
It was interesting to see some strong reactions from the government yesterday. The Democrats were front-runners, i.e. Koprivica and Martinovic said that they wouldn’t support URA’s proposal.
Koprivica said that this initiative represented “a rescue belt for the defeated on August 30”. Martinovic was more open and fierce, giving a chronological overview of “URA’s frauds” on Twitter.
Milos Konatar then responded.
Some of the ministers close to Krivokapic also reacted, urging for the agreement within the existing majority.
DF reacted surprisingly calmly. The silence of the Belgrade tabloids, which haven’t started the attacks on Abazovic yet, is also surprising. If this is coordinated from the outside, as everyone suspects, there is a justified suspicion that official Belgrade has been underlined that it must not threaten the agreement.
What’s interesting is that despite the fact that Escobar once again emphasized yesterday that the DF was not a partner of the United States, Abazovic still insists on the support of the DF to the minority government.
No mass hysteria outbreak on social media either. Lonely shooters react sporadically, but there’s no coordinated and strong activity on the networks. Some handfuls of people are gathering in Pljevlja and Berane to protest.
This moderate response shows that the Democrats are no longer capable of gathering large crowds, and that the DF is quite passive.
The parties are expected to respond to URA’s initiative by the end of Sunday.
Handball team win and street celebrations
Last night, Montenegrin handball players defeated Slovenia 33:32 and qualified for the main phase of the European Championship. In the end, the hero was Nebojsa Simic, who defended three seven-meter throws in the last ten minutes, and social media users proposed that he should be defense minister in the new government.
A handball win was celebrated in Cetinje. Cars displaying the Montenegrin flags were driving through the streets, citizens lit the torches honoring the victory of the team. Also, there was a footage released by Cetinjski List showing that the national anthem was played in a coffee bar where residents had been watching the game.
Attacks on the Martinovic family
There are no limits to some people. Hate speech and irresponsibility on social media literally create an impression that people can do whatever they want without being punished for it.
The Martinovic family have been the target of abuse and violent threats for days on end. And while citizens could witness chauvinistic and misogynistic messages on the Instagram account of .crnogorskisurrealista’ (eng. Montenegrin surrealist) for weeks on end, this time the children were not spared either.
Namely, images of Martinovic’s children were posted on IG along with threatening messages.
“They’ve been making photo montages since last Monday, telling that I wrote ‘Srbe na vrbe’ (eng. Hang Serbs from the willow trees) on my profile. However, on the weekend they put Ustasha hats on heads of my children,“ D. Martinovic told the CdM portal.
That’s all for today. Until tomorrow.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer
