Good morning! The residents of the Municipality of Zeta face serious utility problems. Transport, road and other infrastructure, and public services are at a low level. Instead of the local administration providing what it is legally obliged to provide, they are dealing with Kosovo and manipulation around Botun. However, Zeta is not alone in this. Many local leaders have state-level ambitions and neglect local responsibilities, chasing their dreams of national office. Today’s text is about that.
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What do Zeta residents need a municipality for?
The title is misleading. It leads to the wrong conclusion. The people of Zeta are not alone in what has happened to them. The phenomenon is not only Montenegrin. It is a universal political phenomenon. The cult American series The Wire, which I may have mentioned a couple of times here, was praised by political analysts and political scientists. It aired on HBO between 2002 and 2008 and focuses on the fight against crime in Baltimore. The ending of the series is masterful. It shows that despite short-term changes driven by the enthusiasm of police officers and the narrow political sponsorship of the mayor Carcetti, the cycle of institutional collapse, political manipulation, crime, and drug trafficking continues unchanged. The mayor becomes governor and everything returns to its “natural state.”
Perhaps the only position that does not forgive state ambitions at the local level is the mayor of New York City, often described in the American press as a dead-end for political careers. This position is seen as a career killer because it represents an almost impossible job. Leaders are forced to deal with extreme and difficult problems, from fiscal crises to security issues, which regularly leads to falling popularity and constant public pressure.
In Budva, a similar career path was taken by Dragan Krapovic, who during his two years at the head of the city largely left Budva to the Democratic Front. He promised a lot but delivered almost nothing. He left for a ministerial position and reduced his party to a single councilor in the city. Now Nikola Jovanovic is also announcing a state-level career, probably encouraged by partners from DPS as a “honest Serb” who will enable change at the national level. We will see, but it is unlikely.
Jovanovic himself is a product of this phenomenon of state ambitions at the local level. After the 2016 change of DPS, all parties saw Budva as a “piggy bank” – so the Democrats brought in officials from Cetinje, Podgorica, and the north, neglecting local people and local issues. The DF, or Knezevic’s DNP, also brought Jovanovic from Mojkovac, and today he has, by coincidence and due to the arrest of Milo Bozovic, become mayor.
Local politics is very important for the democratic health of society. Local issues are not and should not be polarising. We all need good roads, proper drainage and sewage systems, clean streets, and public lighting – whether we are Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, or Croats. These issues are difficult to manipulate but also difficult to solve. That is why politicians at the local level turn to topics like Zeta Municipality: recognition of Kosovo, church construction, or the division of Pljevlja and Herceg Novi from Montenegro.
I hope citizens will see through these nonsense narratives, regardless of the emotions they try to provoke, and will hold local politicians accountable for dealing with local issues.
That’s all for today. Have a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(Columnists’ opinions and views are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial team)
