You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous day.
Since the formation of the new Government, some officials such as Mr Dritan Abazović and his party URA, as well as their media support, have not stopped targeting critical media and journalists, calling them mafia spokespersons and mercenaries. This last wave of hatred began with the story about the wiretapping and broadcasting of the wiretapped conversation between Ms Tamara Nikčević and Mr Miodrag Živković, after which the Democrats called Ms Nikčević all sorts of names in their typical attack of hysteria. Ms Nikčević tweeted yesterday that she had received an offer from a Western embassy to take refuge outside Montenegro for a while, which she refused to do. She also criticized the DPS for keeping silent about the situation regarding wiretapping. Members of the 21. Maj Civic Initiative Council and Coordinating Board filed a criminal complaint against the Democrats in this regard.
Following this, award-winning and acclaimed Bosnian-Herzegovinian journalist Dragan Bursać received death threats from Montenegro. After this, Mr Darko Šuković and Antena M were threatened from the same address to be bombed and murdered. There was a sharp reaction from the President of Montenegro, almost all political parties in the opposition, the NGO sector, as well as from the American embassy.
Speaker of Parliament Aleksa Bečić condemned this as well, but also used the opportunity to criticize these journalists who were threatened, while giving young party leaders the task of continuing to deal with those who criticize the work of this Government and behavior of Mr Bečić‘s party through rude comments. I was forced to respond to primitive attacks myself.
Political parties’ financial malversations
I warmly recommend that you take a look at the MANS report on the financing of political parties and what parties do to cover expenses and extract money from the budget, which was presented by Ms Vanja Ćalović at yesterday’s conference: “Most political parties hid sources of funding and actual costs during the 2020 election campaign. The administrators on social networks that financed the advertising of certain political structures were exclusively from Serbia. What was characteristic was that political parties continued to cover up the costs of the field campaign. The media gave discounts to parties for advertising and provided services that were not included in the price lists, and the data on discounts were deleted from contracts… . It was noticed that some officials of the new Government go to municipalities and make some promises. In the previous elections, the role of the church was also specific”.
Game of Thrones in SPC
The Serbian desk of Nova TV reveals that the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral (MCP) will most likely become Bishop Joanikije. We wrote about this a few days ago. However, yesterday the spread of this news provoked sharp reactions from some circles in Serbia, so a series of mutual attacks appeared on nationalist portals and in the statements of nationalist politicians. First, it was denied on the Vidovdan.Org website that it had been decided who would be the metropolitan. In the same text on that site, it was announced that a kind of revision of the Cetinje theology seminary work was organised from Serbia, during which irregularities were determined, and that there was a possibility that the election of the metropolitan will be postponed to autumn, by which time Bishop Irinej would be managing MCP. This was followed by a sharp reaction from the official of the Democrats and the Government of Montenegro, Nevenka Ćirović Bošković, who said on Facebook that she was giving full support to Joanikije and Patriarch Porfirije. It is interesting that through such statements by Democrat official, we can clearly see that this party has rather few civic features in its ranks.
Moratorium law
In Parliament, the SDP, together with the DF, SNP and PZP, made an “ambush” for URA with the proposed law on moratorium. URA, which until a year ago demanded in a populist way a complete moratorium, did not support the law yesterday, because it noticed from the position of the Government that such a law would be financially unsustainable. The law submitter Raško Konjević made a point, because he previously stressed that the Government’s behavior proves that it works for the interest of banks in Montenegro. He also recalled of URA’s inconsistency: “Miloš Konatar proposed the same solution on 6 April. Then he forgot that there was SDP’s proposal dating back to April 2020. Why did you change your mind in just a month? Now the opinion of Mr Radoje Žugić is more important to you”, Mr Konjević tweeted.
Going to Medova
On Sunday, 30 May, a trip is to be organized to the Port of Medova – the Montenegrin blue tomb, in order to pay tribute to the unfortunate Montenegrin volunteers who died at Medova, on the Brindisi steamer, on 6 January 1916. Departures from Podgorica, Nikšić, Cetinje, Budva, Danilovgrad, etc. will be organized, it was announced on social networks.
Protest against dismissal of Risan hospital director
Residents of Risan will block the intersection leading to the Risan Special Hospital today at 9am in protest against the announced dismissal of the director of that institution, Dr Vlado Popović. As it is written in the announcement, which is circulating on social networks, Dr Popović is one of the best European and world experts in the field of neuro-surgery. “We are all obliged to take to the streets tomorrow and give our support to Vlado Popović“, the announcement reads.
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow at the same time.
