You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous weekend.
By Ljubomir Filipović, CdM observer
Lawyer Mirjana Pajkovic alarmed the Montenegrin public for the second time in less than a year. The first time was last year, when she left the URA Civic Movement before the elections, and the second time is now when she has decided to end the lawyers’ strike, which she allegedly supported herself. The case that Pajkovic took over has alarmed the public and become the subject of political manipulations. The killed young man was a participant of patriotic manifestations, and yesterday the citizens paid tribute to him. The Bar Association suspended Ms Pajkovic, after which, on social networks, due to misinformation about the release of the murder suspect, calls for protests began in front of the premises of the Bar Association. Apart from this, the way in which the Government supported Ms Pajkovic’s decision, organizing a police escort, caused suspicion among part of the public, so the call for protests was understood as a provocation, after which the protest organizers called on people not to gather.
Theocracy problems
After the dinner and the reception of Metropolitan Joanikije, the passions still do not subside. This time, they were awakened by the Metropolitan himself, who was also welcomed in Cetinje by the Prime Minister and some ministers. The liturgy and the reception were organized in secret, and only yesterday the information about this event that took place the day before yesterday was published. Let’s go back to politics – Metropolitan Joanikije again took a political side and criticized the Democratic Front for recording the dinner where nationalist songs were sung. It remains to be seen from these church upheavals whether the first personnel victim is really the Secretary General of the Government Bozo Milonjic, who pretended to be unaware of the situation in a statement for Prva TV yesterday.
Neo-NATO members
The celebration of the 4th anniversary of NATO membership passed without much of a ceremony. The current opposition, which introduced the country to NATO, reminded the public of its contribution to the process, while the former opponents of the membership saw the benefits in 4 years and congratulated and celebrated the anniversary. PM Zdravko Krivokapic said on that occasion that he was “convinced that everything they do within the NATO agenda strengthens Montenegro’s position and facilitates its path to the European Union”. “Today we are celebrating 4 years of NATO membership. Montenegro remains a committed member of the Alliance, united with allies in defending common values and creating a better world for all of us”, said Parliament Speaker Aleksa Becic. Nice.
Going out or deepening the crisis of power
Just when the ship was rocking well around the budget, the Resolution on Srebrenica, the dismissal of Minister Leposavic, the catastrophic economic situation, and the chaotic and quarreling authorities – it seems that they will be helped a little in that. The President of Montenegro and the DPS leader, Mr Milo Djukanovic, said earlier that his party would vote in favour of the Resolution on Srebrenica and the dismissal of Vladimir Leposavic. Value is quite understandable, but tactically not so much, because in this way the Government is stabilized.
The announcement of the DF that it will vote for the budget and without setting the Fundamental Agreement as a condition, is proof that things are slowly calming down from all fronts. As if it does not suit anyone for this Government to fall. MP Milan Knezevic, who also announced that the DF would support the budget, continues to talk about the reshuffling and the dismissal, but it is not clear by what mechanisms he plans to do that. He is firing an empty rifle, because it is obvious that DF must not overthrow this Government. Firstly, it cuts the branch on which it sits and risks lucrative employments, and secondly, if they provoked a change of Government, opposition voters would not forgive them.
Not everything is going well in Ms Bratic’s Chetnik hogpen. She seems to have fired another in a series of associates of her own choosing.
Opposition turmoil
The historian and DPS official Zivko Andrijasevic continued with provocations addressed to intellectuals and politicians in the state-building bloc. In an interview for Pobjeda, he called the DPS alternative within the bloc the “rural copies of Slavko Perovic”, and called the people who reacted sharply to his last week’s appearance, the first after 30 August, “patriotism measurers” who want to present their “private gatherings” as struggle for the common cause. In this way, Mr Andrijasevic does not help his party, nor the state-building bloc, if such a thing exists at all.
It seems that even the new opposition cannot do without cannibalism, but some newly formed parties are divided, activists who organized the making of the Montenegrin flag are divided and attack each other. It is obvious that success requires more cooperation and more coordination, taking into account all the differences, unless there is an intention to make a “separate peace” with part of the Government, but as far as I can see, no one on that side is ready for those experiments.
That’s it for today. See you again tomorrow at the same time in the same place.
