"Fog everywhere, fog around us", was sung for the first time in 1980 by the legendary Croatian singer Josipa Lisac. To tell the truth, Josipa certainly did not mean the same kind of fog that this text aims at, but - the point is precisely in the fog, because every fog tries to thwart vision, and every one is tolerable and clear only after it evaporates. What all this current fog will reveal when it clears remains to be seen, but since it is an artificial fog, something is already clear. It is clear to the Montenegrin public, judging by the reactions, that the story is based around a certain South Korean "crypto king" Do Kwon, who allegedly robbed the crypto community for a paltry 40 billion dollars, and the favorite for the position of the future Prime Minister of Montenegro, Milojko Spajić, just a couple on the day before the parliamentary elections, organized and carefully timed. Goal? Game of Thrones, of course. Dritan, d molon labe fashion.
At the beginning, it is necessary to separate two things: the legal outcome of the whole story from the way and reasons for timing the affair in the last week of the campaign.
As for the first, the solution is easy because the result will concern one man: let SDT and all competent institutions do their work. Period.
Regarding the second aspect, I dare say the more important one because it concerns literally all of us, things are somewhat different. The political struggle in any society, no matter how economically successful or organized it is, implies a whole range of not very ethically clean moves, to use a touch of euphemism, but there must be a line whose crossing is simply not tolerated. And that limit is a violation of the public interest, which in the mentioned case is unquestionable: treating this topic in the way that the leading people of the executive power - otherwise obscenely long in the technical term - is clearly undermining the electoral process! Why the "Kwon Affair" just today, two or three days before the elections, and not two months ago, or in, say, fifteen days? The legal epilogue would certainly be the same, but… what would be missing?
The very timing of the initiation of this story in the eyes of the Montenegrin public, heavily traumatized by political affairs, casts doubt on the motives of this action. Hence the mass and resigned reactions of the citizens: the one who wanted to profit politically from this seems not to have learned how much Montenegro has changed in a short time after experiencing the possibility of elections. For us, unfortunately in the advanced XXI century, it is an epoch-making discovery. In the plane of discovery of the wheel.
"Without any desire to take sides with anyone, but to defend the right for the elections to take place in peace and at least in a minimally normal atmosphere, the obvious must be said: all state resources, including the monopoly over the disposal of security information, have been placed for the purpose of promoting a parties", observes Srđan Perić, the holder of the Preokret electoral list, which - by the way - is rapidly becoming a symbol of thoroughness, moderation and culture on the political scene of Montenegro. And that is the essence: not to side with anyone, but to defend the right to normality: that institutions unencumbered by the political ambitions of the current leaders do their job. So, let's let SDT - as Spajić himself calls after all - to do what they do.
At this point, praise must come for Spajić's approach to the whole story: he did not, like many other political leaders in the previous period when they were faced with various accusations, choose the media quagmire as a field to prove his integrity; he did not place himself above the political ideas and principles he publicly advocates, but - which immediately proved to be very effective - made himself available to the competent institutions. This kind of approach, which is diametrically opposed to the overworked, often extremely stupid and never pretty party "sewage spills" to the public, must really be well-deserved praise.
However, taught by the "muddy" experiences of the previous few decades, any attempt to return the affair from the political to the field of law - which is the only authoritative way to determine the truth - is equal to an attempt to put squeezed toothpaste back into the tube. Ergo, wasted work. However, pointing the finger at the possible bad intentions of those who are allegedly behind the initiation of this affair does not answer the question that was asked. Although the general impression is that the story was started with the clear intention to compromise one man before the elections, and that all this has absolutely nothing to do with any so-called concern for the general social interest, because both the method and the timing would be different, no motives must relegate the exactness of facts to the background: every accusation can only be refuted by facts.
Well, in the latest Montenegrin culmination of ethical nihilism, the only real victims of this conflict are the institutions. The state is primarily made up of institutions, which in our country are often semi-functional, mostly weak in personnel, unprofessional and - most importantly! - devastatingly dependent on politics. And there is the essence of that fog from the beginning. However, regardless of the all-too-frequent aesthetic unworthiness of political public performance, citizens are no longer victims. Nor can they be anymore. We learned how from the fog, if only step by step. It showed us. But we have learned that the only way out of the fog is through smart choices. With concrete smart choices that bind the whole society, where the sadomasochistic recycling of the worst moments of our history must no longer be either a method or a dominant theme.
Bonus video:
