During its lifetime, Democratic Montenegro managed to promote two, in political practice, unsustainable principles - that it will not sit at the same table with the DPS at any cost and that it will avoid topics that, as they say, divide brothers, neighbors and long-term friends.
Then, at the end of July, behind the backs of the rest of the opposition, they agreed with the DPS on the formation of the Committee for the Comprehensive Reform of the Electoral Legislation, saving their own skin from marginalization in that process, which was heavily played by the DPS and the DF. This was done with the intensive mediation of the head of the EU Delegation in Montenegro, Aiva Orav, and several other ambassadors of influential EU members who, for the second time, saw in the Democrats a numerically and ideologically credible alternative to solve the problem of trust in the electoral process.
Throughout the work of the Committee, the Democrats behaved as if they were sitting on a slightly heated stove. From which they jumped as soon as the DPS ordered stronger fire. And right into the arms of DF. Because of the Bill on Freedom of Religion, raising to sky-high the importance of one of the identity topics from which they persistently, and somewhat successfully, ran away in previous years, although they could have left the committee before for 1001 reasons - from numerous affairs in the judiciary, to ignoring the proposal of the Law on Technical Government by DPS.
This, let's call it, political dilettantism fueled by the fear of far-right forces, can only be compared to the move of Nebojša Medojević, who in 2008 went with Andrija Mandić and Amfilohi to "defend" Kosovo at protests in front of the Parliament of Montenegro, even though only a few months before that PzP voted for the Constitution of Montenegro with the ruling majority. And Medojević never again managed to get closer to the center of the political spectrum.
As they heat up the atmosphere of DPS on the one hand, and SPC, on the other, maybe Aleksa Bečić and Boris Bogdanović will receive an invitation for some new protests, under the old flag.
The Democrats did not find hot water when they allege that the DPS has now deliberately pushed the Bill on Freedom of Religion into the procedure in order to undermine the agreement on the election legislation. That is actually one of the motives of DPS.
But the Bečić - Bogdanović duo will hardly explain to any of the representatives of the international community and part of the domestic public why they are stopping work on electoral reforms, while on the other hand they are not acting and announcing their position on the Draft Law on Freedom of Religion. More precisely, why do they condition the continuation of work on electoral legislation by withdrawing from the procedure of this law. The evening school of Srđan Milić, who in 2011 conditioned the adoption of electoral reforms, as one of the conditions for opening negotiations with the EU, with amendments to the Constitution, so that Serbian would become equal to the Montenegrin language.
The Democrats don't even need to act surprised. First, Milo Đukanović said at the DPS Congress that the primary interest of the party is the strengthening of the national identity of Montenegro, so that a week later Duško Marković's Government would approve the Draft Law on Freedom of Religion, which had been lying in its drawers since May.
The Democrats came off like roadies caught by snow in December. They will have to clean up the rather large deposits of DPS and DF on their own with a shovel in hand, when they have previously with the same axes destroyed the parties and unconcerned MPs interested in cooperation in order to form some form of civil block - from SDP, through URA, to still on the mob of Neđeljko Rudović, Miodrag Lekić, and Vladimir Pavićević.
Now the key question is what DPS will do next. The chances that he will withdraw the disputed bill from the parliamentary procedure are almost nil. By doing so, they would admit defeat and give the Democrats a chance to declare victory again.
And when he did that, DPS achieved his goal - he pushed the Democrats into the arms of DF and Amfilohi.
Let's consider, however, what are more realistic scenarios.
One of the possibilities is that the DPS together with its partners and probably the SDP in the Assembly will pass the disputed law without looking back at the messages of the SPC and the parties that stood behind Amfilohi's mantle, deepening the crisis so that Đukanović would later call elections sometime in May, which is legitimate and legal .
DPS can justify this by the impossibility of a two-thirds agreement with the opposition on anything - election laws, the new VDT and four members of the Judicial Council. Then, by saying that they want to avoid campaigning in the tourist season because the elections must be held, depending on the interpretation, by the end of September. And finally, the adaptation of the executive power to the new approach of the EU in the negotiations for membership, which is expected in May, which, at the same time as raising tensions over the issue of identity, would try to avoid justified assessments of the informal blockade of negotiations due to the lack of results in the rule of law.
However, negotiations with the EU are a special headache that DPS is still waiting for.
However, the big question is whether Đukanović is allowed to make a unilateral move in a situation when a significant part of the DPS electorate is still healing Amfilohi's hand, when the EU insists on establishing trust in the electoral process, while at the same time it cannot boast of the completion of the highway.
Although the DPS members would not mind taking a completed kilometer ride for pre-election purposes, when Vučić's SNS members can travel on an imaginary subway in the campaign.
Another option is for Marković, in the context of the adoption of the Law on Freedom of Religion, to invite those opposition subjects who want it and who, as the wording might say, are focused on the state interests of Montenegro, to continue working on the electoral reform and possibly form a kind of technical government. Primarily to the SDP and a few independent MPs, possibly the URA as well, all in order to increase the room for maneuver at the moment of digging a deep trench between the two parties.
If he managed to negotiate with a sufficient number of opposition MPs the adoption of part of the OSCE recommendations for electoral legislation and all other laws that do not require a two-thirds majority, such as the media or RTCG, as well as the three-fifths election of the new VDT and members of the Judicial Council, DPS would fulfill the prerequisites for any kind of electoral legitimacy.
All of this wrapped in the wafers of the state interests of Montenegro, so much so that the attacks of the DF and the Democrats, fueled by the interests of the SPC, cannot harm or even strengthen the entities that agree to hard negotiations with the DPS, which will lead to the movement of the paralyzed system.
The third option is that, when the passion calms down, the DPS starts a new round of fake changes to the electoral legislation, including the Democrats and the DF, which is a less realistic option than the previous two.
Metropolitan Amfilohije of the SPC in Montenegro announced that he will invite representatives of all parties to dinner before Christmas. I don't know with what intention he is doing it and what will happen in the meantime, but both halves of the government's opponents already have their Judas. In the form of a Democrat. Some are guilty of deviating from the civil course, others for not being Serbian enough. A painful crucifixion follows for the Democrats.
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