Shortly before the refreshments, the mayor started two grandiose boulevards in my neighborhood, the likes of which can only be found across Morača. He promised that we will drive on six lanes before going to the elections in Podgorica. Excavators worked like on Montenegrin beaches, and new buildings were sprouting around the future boulevard, where more minority ministers and privileged administrations will move in. But two Nicholas Days and May 21 have passed since then, and the boulevard is still waiting as if it were a highway. Excavators first fell silent and then disappeared, and people drive on macadam and fear for cars that have long passed the age of majority. We go to get bread, milk and cigars along the goat tracks, and the children jump over obstacles to school like Lara Croft.
In the meantime, the mayor has advanced to vice president and opened several parks, but he mentions boulevards less and less. Instead of cutting red ribbons, he serves lunch in soup kitchens and animates voters with bad forums about burek with cheese. He is begging the party god to postpone the elections until the spring, aware that for the defense of Podgorica it is easier to make Zeta independent than to finish two boulevards.
Cheers to the new government, but he reminds us of the mayor/vice-president as he announces the year ahead of us. With a short mandate and a too long wish list, the prime minister and 20 ministers promise a fast ride to Brussels, a full coffers and even fuller prisons. On the unfinished highway with the most expensive toll, they tempt their neighbors to save the tourist season and pretend to be Russians, Ukrainians and indecisive Arabs. That on the foam of the sea they pay for deckchairs made of dry gold and in kilometer-long queues they waste their nerves and increasingly expensive gasoline.
If our neighborhood does not fill the state coffers, the wider government will never fill it by selling confiscated cigarettes. They will adopt the lex specialis and anger some anonymous smugglers, but there will be money for pensions and child benefits. If the same law is applied to magic bananas, there will be money even for fathers of three or more children. Having declared cigarette smuggling clinically dead, the technical government without Aleksa and Zdravko will try to save the Constitutional and Supreme Courts from certain death. Two-thirds will elect Old Testament judges who judge neither according to Vesna nor according to Jovanići, but according to the Constitution and Twitter justice. Then even the silent prosecutor will get a new potency for scrolling through SKY correspondence, and the leaders will not fight crime with Facebook and video clips, but with laws and institutions. We will be in Europe before Vučić and Rama arrive to invite us to the Open Balkans again.
But in order for everything not to remain on the promises of six reform bands, the prime minister will have to get serious, and some hologram ministers will have to at least speak. Because even in a minority government, it is not right for only Saša, Goran, Raško and Dado to work, and for the other ministers to only serve for taking pictures with the ambassadors. They should roll up their sleeves, even when they don't have a portfolio. Just as he gave up his encrypted phone, the young prime minister could also take a break from social networks. Not to act like a teenager at graduation, but to leave a few selfies with Toti, Ramo and Klitschko as a throwback. He could skip some official trips and weddings, because electoral reforms and European agendas will not start by themselves. Just as Zimus negotiated with the father of the nation, he could also negotiate with Aleksa this summer. If they are not already bound by the tears of two mothers, they could at least stop behaving like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard because of the two-thirds majority. When the situation in the house is sorted out, the prime minister could explain to Vučić that the Open Balkans can wait, but the Svetova cell in Spuz cannot, because its booking expires in a few years.
Because time takes its toll in a minority government just as it does in love. In the beginning, everything is possible and within reach, and reforms are promised like stars from the sky. The ruling majorities work permanently, and the party conductors and caterers look like lovers who will keep the coalition love forever deep down. Agendas are put aside as life together, and days are spent on trips and selfies. Until love gets tangled up in some basic agreement and the Open Balkans, and in the direct transmission of the Government, the coalition partners slide in with both feet. Then the two-thirds majority is crowned as pre-election asphalt, and the prime minister risks passing off as a mayor who wanted to be a builder. Instead of the six Brussels lanes, the government will have to protect itself by postponing the elections and formalizing the connection with the DPS. It remains for us to drive on macadam, beware of potholes and inflation that runs at 200 per hour. Until we reach the boulevard that will take us to Murova.
Bonus video:
