Dismantling the party state and partitocracy

Montenegro today no longer has a problem with bad government alone. It has a problem with the model of the state. For decades, the country has been and is being governed as a party prey, not as a serious economic and social system. That is why today we have weakened institutions, captive public enterprises, irresponsible spending, permanent fiscal risks and an economy that continues to rely on imports, consumption and seasonal tourism. That is not a development model. It was and is a political fraud of prolonged duration.

That is why the issue of the arrangement with the International Monetary Fund has become a matter of elementary state seriousness and responsibility. Montenegro needs a credible multi-year arrangement with the IMF, with the support of the World Bank and the European Commission, because without an external framework of discipline, domestic politics will never bring order to itself. It is not a problem that the IMF demands transparency, accountability and rules. The problem is that the domestic political class has been functioning without them for years.

In our public space, cooperation with the IMF is regularly presented as a sign of weakness, as a loss of sovereignty, as an alleged humiliation of the state. This is cheap and transparent party demagogy. It is not a loss of sovereignty when the state agrees to fiscal discipline, expenditure control and clear rules. A loss of sovereignty is when you cannot control your own budget, when you spend more than you have before every election and when you make the bill for political populism go to the citizens.

Weak and corrupt governments see the IMF and the World Bank as ATMs. They want money, but they don't want reforms. They want support, but they don't want responsibility. They want international credibility, but they want corruption, party recruitment, and fiscal improvisation to stay at home. As soon as the time comes to implement reforms and meet the conditions, the old party-cratic show begins: a story about patriotism, sovereignty, and the specificities of the country. In translation: the parties want to keep both the money and the controlled chaos, so that everything stays the same.

Montenegro, however, does not need cosmetic changes. It needs serious fiscal stabilization. Public debt must start on a clear and firm downward path. Budgetary waste must be stopped. Permanent liabilities without permanent sources of financing must become a thing of the past. The state can no longer live off political voluntarism, pre-election expenditures and post-election lying to the public. That is why an arrangement with the IMF is needed immediately. Not only as a symbol of reforms, but as a mechanism of discipline: clear goals, regular supervision, control of spending and mandatory reforms of public money management.

But there is another key thing for the credibility of the program. Such a process cannot be led by another party finance minister. It cannot be led by a new political commissar. It cannot be led by a man without international reputation, experience and authority. The finance minister at this stage must be an expert known and respected by the IMF, the World Bank and international financial markets. He must be a man with the biography, knowledge and integrity to say "no" to any political pressure that threatens fiscal stability.

Montenegro today needs a profile like the late Dr. Dušan Vujović once represented in Serbia. An expert of international stature. A man who knew how to conduct international negotiations, how to implement fiscal consolidation and how to get the country out of the zone of irresponsibility. Anything else would be a new fraud wrapped in old rhetoric.

The Prime Minister must not and cannot act as a mute spectator. He must be a political guarantor of reforms. If the top brass does not introduce full discipline, every plan will end in trade, blackmail and party bargaining. The government cannot be a collection of departments divided along party lines. It must be a team that knows what it is doing, why it is doing it and within what time frame it must deliver results.

The arrangement with the IMF does not mean blindly cutting all costs and everything in order. Serious fiscal consolidation does not cut the state where it is needed, but where it has become inefficient, corrupt and costly to itself. Unproductive spending, party luxuries, duplicate functions, corruption and politically motivated expenditures are cut. At the same time, investments in health, education, energy, infrastructure, development and digital transformation are protected and strengthened. The state must not spend more. But it must spend smarter.

A program of reform and growth is meaningless if it remains a dead letter on paper. It must become a plan for dismantling the partitocracy. Professionalization of public administration, full control of public money, transparent public procurement, accountability of public enterprises and a crackdown on corruption are not details. This is the core and foundation of the country's recovery.

Therefore, the choice is simple: either Montenegro will enter a serious stabilization program, with an arrangement with the IMF, the World Bank, and the European Union, and appoint an international expert as Minister of Finance, or it will continue to sink into fiscal improvisation, the price of which will be ever increasing and which will be paid by the citizens.

Patriotism is not a clamor about sovereignty, language, church and nation, nor waving flags while the state bends under the weight of its own irresponsibility. Patriotism is order in public finances, an end to party governance of the state and a state that finally serves the citizens, not the parties.