Jakov, Šešelj and "The Other Serbia"

The season was opened by war criminal Vojislav Šešelj. The time has come to return favors.

Vojvoda first recalled the year 1998 and the inauguration of the newly elected President of Montenegro, Milo Đukanović, in Cetinje, on January 15.

"I understand the invitation to the inauguration as a gesture of goodwill from Milo Đukanović and his political party. That's why we, on our part, respond in the same way," Seselj told "Vijesta" at the time and added that the radicals will not participate in the demonstrations announced by the outgoing Montenegrin President Momir Bulatović.

He did not forget the moment when he was acquitted of the Hague charges and one of his favorite congratulations.

"As far as I am concerned, I acknowledge and congratulate Šešelj on his freedom," said Đukanović in March 2016 after the acquittal of the Trial Chamber of the Hague Tribunal.

The time has come for Vojislav Šešelj to return at least part of the debt to Đukanović. He made an announcement on Hepi television with Milomir Marić on the occasion of the second round of elections in Montenegro. As he said, the most important thing is that Milo Đukanović leaves power.

The Duke is not at all stupid or naive. Foreign policy commentator Boško Jakšić explained it nicely in one sentence: "Electoral chances decrease for anyone supported by Šešelj, including Milatović."

It became clear very quickly that it was a well-coordinated action.

There is none of Milo's ventriloquists, from Miloš Nikolić, Danijel Živković, Aleksandra Vuković to Jevto Eraković, who did not at least once utter the mantra about Milatović as "Zdravko's apostle and Šešelj's candidate".

However, that was not a surprise. Đukanović is obviously in a big bind and any help, even a war criminal, is welcome.

What was astonishing, at least for me, was how much strength some of the apostles, let me use this modern expression, the so-called "Second Serbia", put into defending the character and actions of Milo Đukanović.

For example, one of the respected Belgrade newspapers, from the pen of its editor, will publish a comment under the title "Apostol would like to be president", and the Autonomija portal from the pen of the former president of the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) concludes that it is a group of "political dilettantes who do not they see the obvious things, and that is that the favorite of Vučić and the SPC, and therefore of Russia, was not Andrija Mandić, but the young promising and so-called pro-European Jakov Milatović".

For Sonja Biserko, the president of the Helsinki Committee, "there is still no person in sight who can play the role of Đukanović in the next phase, which he played in the independence of Montenegro", and Balša Božović was even more direct:

"Candidate Jakov Milatović has special support from Joaniki Mićović. It is a special current within the Church of Serbia that is attached exclusively to Russian interests".

Former Vice President of the Đinđić Government, Žarko Korać, has different fears:

"You can criticize Đukanović all you want, but one thing is certain - he is sending a very clear message that Montenegro will have its own path to the European Union, that it is a completely independent country and that it is solely guided by its own interests."

However, the sharpest, much sharper pen than he was at the time writing for the Chetnik "Views", is the historian Nikola Samardžić, who is especially concerned with the "civic center" which, according to him, consists of PES, Democrats and URA.

"That civic center is the center of Russian influence and mafia compromises on the tangent from Bar to Jarinj. A collection of fake personalities and fake diplomas. Vučić also gathers such people around him, so the whole normal world laughs at him, and he himself is bizarre when he faces his surroundings," says Samardžić, explaining that this civic center will stop integration into the EU and demand that NATO be left.

The list is long, and instead of further enumerating names and lamentations on the given topic, in the end one should ask how the agenda of the part of the political scene in Serbia, better known as "The Other Serbia", when it comes to the current moment in Montenegro, has become a syllogism: we are against Serbian Orthodox Church, Milo is against the SPC, so Milo forever. Even at the cost of finding themselves on the same mission as Vojislav Šešelj, their hated enemy, in that holy mission.

The question is, of course, rhetorical and has little to do with Montenegro, which on Sunday will get the president it chooses and probably deserves. Much to the chagrin of both Seselj and the "other Serbs".