It was a surreal year, the second in a row after thirty, the reality of which is chilling.
We got rid of the heavenly topics opened in December 2019 at the end of the summer, but the fight for our country not to end up in the heavenly realm is not over yet.
While its citizens waged war over a contract with (yet) another religious community, state institutions fell into an induced coma one after another.
Montenegro, which survived decades in captivity, proved incapable of living in freedom.
To the question of who is to blame, the logical answer would be - the government.
Since everything that is logical does not have to be true, the correct answer is - opposition.
Not possible? It is, because now in the opposition is the former regime that captured the state to such an extent that it also limited its duration with its rule.
Of the entire Constitution, whose defense has caused an unprecedented fuss these days, only the first paragraph of the first article has been in operation for the last sixteen years - Montenegro is an independent and sovereign state with a republican form of government.
The second position - that Montenegro is a civil, democratic, ecological and social justice state, based on the rule of law - was only part of political marketing.
Thus, the former regime covered up the incitement of national and religious divisions, restricted freedom, misuse and robbery of natural resources, planned impoverishment and the terror of injustice.
The entire Montenegrin legislation was adapted to this.
This is why the Constitutional Court, the Judicial Council, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, and soon the Special Prosecutor's Office will also be blocked.
That's why changes to key laws were a prerequisite for all other changes, because democracy and DPS legislation are mutually exclusive.
This is the first and unforgivable mistake of the tripartite coalition and the essential cause of the disappointment of the voters who brought it to power on August 30, 2020.
* * *
It was also a year of disappointment. Two governments were overthrown and a third was almost formed, but there is still no way out of the vicious circle.
DPS is formally no longer in power, but its achievements are, not only legislative but also political.
Because the students of his political science school were not only DPS children, but also all the others.
To lead thirty generations astray is a formidable undertaking. Scary, or rather, that's why we are where we are.
And for this reason, one should not hope for a change in the system before a change in consciousness. To begin with, that democracy implies the will of the majority only if that will is expressed by free individuals.
The whole of January was spent overthrowing the Government of Zdravko Krivokapić, which after 14 months it turned out that it should not even have been elected.
She wouldn't have been if her representative had been as honest before December 4, 2020 as after February 4, 2022.
Well, we already realized during the election campaign that he leans too much towards the church, but his image as a good man from the neighborhood made most people believe that his priority will be ordinary human problems and dedication to state work.
The university professor had enough pedagogical tact to present in simple words and certify with his signature what he will do when he becomes prime minister.
Everything was there - from correcting injustices towards citizens to strengthening cooperation with NATO and the EU, from changing laws due to the fight against crime and corruption to freeing imprisoned institutions...
Everything, except what he did.
- I had no political motive, my motive was to protect the church and its property. I entered politics because of the Law on Freedom of Religion, in order to fulfill a mandate to Metropolitan Amfilohi. I don't know if the metropolitan would be satisfied, but I know that I have fulfilled everything I promised him - the prime minister admitted the truth only after falling from power.
Promises to the citizens remained - joy to the crazy...
We are also left with millions in damages for revanchism, even though he swore on the Constitution that there would be none.
And thousands of appeals to the Constitutional Court, from which three judges retired during his mandate.
And the destroyed diplomatic network, after the scandalous (un)invitation due to "consultations" that have not yet been completed.
And the never-ending game of chess with the President in which the black and white pieces are replaced by a black and white nation...
* * *
The removal of Krivokapić was a prelude to a year of unrealistic expectations.
So unrealistic, that in several columns I almost felt the unforgivable sin. After two decades, I almost joined the then president of the parliament in the position that "here, not only the government needs to change, but also the people"...
It looks silly, but it works - the collective aMNEsia covered not only thirty years of DPS, but also the previous one.
Dritan Abazović suddenly became guilty of everything. As in an anecdotal judgment from the communist era, the shortest ever written.
- DV is guilty of EVERYTHING - that's all it said in the verdict, without any explanation as to whether it refers to everything that happened during the fight in which a dozen citizens of Titograd took part, to everything that happened that day in Titograd or to everything that happened ever happened to anyone...
In a similar way, Abazović was sentenced for overthrowing the Government of Zdravko Krivokapić. Even though only fifteen MPs supported that Government after the vote, and only eleven on the eve of the fall.
Before the election of the minority government on April 28, he was convicted for accepting the support of DPS. Despite having previously repeated the same sentence for three full months:
- We offer a minority government to be supported by all, it will be offered to 81 deputies in the Parliament, with the desire to unblock the road to the European Union - reported by all media on January 17, and he repeated until the very end of the negotiations.
The Democratic Front and Democratic Montenegro rejected the offer immediately, citing different reasons later.
For the Democrats, the overthrow of Krivokapić's government with the DPS was a betrayal. When they overthrew Abazović with the same DPS on August 19 - they did not mention treason.
Unlike his predecessor, he was not given a full fourteen months, but - an incomplete four.
For all 113 days of the original mandate, the Government was overthrown from within by the SDP. Thanks to the TV broadcast of the sessions, we watched live the transfer of the powers of the DPS to the oldest coalition partner.
That there is no forgetting the first love, she also showed the synchronization on the occasion of the foundation contract.
- Fraud, swindle, betrayal... - the argument of the allegedly surprised partners lasted for months - if we had known about the contract with the "Church of Serbia" we would not have supported this Government!
Of course they knew, that contract was the first, public and irrevocable condition of the SNP to support the Government and to enter it.
It's just that the DPS and the SDP had an obstacle to preserve the trust of those believers and admirers of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church who do not believe their own eyes. That the hawthorn stake of the DPS was stuck in the CPC immediately after its resurrection in 1993.
And that then all hope for the restoration of autocephaly was lost, this time forever.
And that the Church that DPS promised at the party congress (?!) has nothing to do with the one that survived two Montenegrin dynasties.
And that the confiscation of CPC property has nothing to do with the signed contract. Rather than with the unwritten but drastically more fundamental one, which the master of Montenegro and DPS realized with the Montenegrin-coastal metropolitan and the Serbian Church.
That church is not only the richest, strongest and most massive community of believers, but also voters in the Western Balkans. The support given to Milo Đukanović in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2006, 2012 and 2016 by the Metropolitan of Amfilohije was paid for by donating all Montenegrin churches and monasteries.
Ownership of Serbian temples in Montenegro was not disputed even during the communist era.
DPS and SDP knew it, we all knew that they knew it, they also knew that we knew they knew it, but they didn't want to admit it.
Because then their voters would also find out that it is not about the defense of church property, but exclusively of state property that ended up in the hands of the supreme regime members and persons connected to them...
* * *
It was also a year of missed opportunities to correct three decades of injustices and failures, including those from the previous year.
True, the minority government became drastically more efficient after the change, but the bill for the months that were spent on Badian discussions came to be paid.
Surreal images from Šavnik with nine rounds of voting for the new administration, but also from Podgorica, which is governed by a beaten opposition, are the most striking consequence of the crisis of institutions that is visible even from Brussels.
The most dangerous, however, is the induced coma of the Constitutional Court and the judiciary, which, thanks to the inability of parties and parliament to see further than the nose and wider than the plenary hall, threatens to last for a long time.
I know, I'm getting dark again on the eve of the holidays, but it's not up to me. But to Montenegro, which since 1990 has only been offered a choice between greater and lesser evil.
Despite that, or because of that, I wish her and us the best of luck in the new year.
We will need...
PS Ugh, I almost forgot what a choice we have in January. First, the new Government, which would be different from the old one only in terms of mandate and composition, but the same in terms of forced formation, close support and time constraints. Second, new elections with the revival of institutions by DPS cadres or the transformation of small Montenegro into big Šavnik...
Bonus video:
