The European Facade and the Balkan Cracks

(Morning sheet)

The elections of August 30, 2020 were a turning point in the recent history of Montenegro. The long-standing government fell, and the long-standing opposition became the government. Of what was promised then, little remains, and even less has been realized. The economy is still extractive in nature, wage growth is ensured by machinations with contributions, and not by the growth of the real economy, the practice of party employment has continued, and in some places even increased, while the fight against crime has been reduced to a showdown with one criminal clan, and a very lenient attitude towards another. The only progress that the country has recorded is on the European path, if we measure progress by closed chapters, not by real impact in society.

Since 2020, 3 governments have changed in Montenegro: the government of the lost Zdravko Krivokapić, the government of the pest Dritan Abazović, and the current government, the government of the absent Milojko Spajić, the Prime Minister who is gone.

Montenegro's European path is the main game in town, an all-pervading theme and a kind of parareligious phenomenon. Almost everyone in Montenegro swears by the European Union, the EU is supposedly the solution for everything. Such a situation, of course, in specific daily political categories, by definition, is most favorable to the authorities.

Over time, EU rhetoric has turned into a fig leaf for everything and anything – so if you ask why the prime minister lied about his own citizenship, why he is not in the Parliament when the new ministers of his government are being voted on, why he is silent about the erection of a monument to a war criminal, why the police calmly watch as local thugs beat journalists at the erection of the monument, or why the police minister does not resign or was not dismissed due to the poor police response after a mass murderer in Cetinje walked around and killed without hindrance – you risk being accused of undermining the country's European path.

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Montenegro is currently led by an essentially three-component government, which includes parties from smaller ethnic groups.

The Europe Now! (PES) movement of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić positions itself as a pro-European and reformist structure, has recently become an associate member of the European People's Party and enjoys strong (and undeserved) support from the top of the European Union. Under the surface, stripped of its rhetoric, it is a political collection of everything and anything, of defectors from a number of parties, and most of the party's parliamentary representatives are personally and in terms of interests closer to Andrija Mandić, the President of the Parliament and Chetnik duke, than to other actors on the Montenegrin political scene. Spajić is uninterested in governing the state and in governing the parliamentary majority, which has allowed Andrija Mandić to become the true master of that majority.

The New Serbian Democracy (NSD) of the President of the Assembly and Chetnik voivode Andrija Mandić is suddenly trying to polish itself, to position itself as a pro-American and pro-European conservative party, after almost three decades of Mandić's Chetnik and Putinist politics. While Mandić insincerely talks about reconciliation, he is caught up in the pressure of the past, the electorate and the Vučić regime - so this time, unlike his former comrade Milan Knežević, he does not openly praise Ratko Mladić, but rather politely sends his condolences to his family on the death of the war criminal.

Mandić has distanced himself from Vučić, whom he considers a near-loser (or more precisely, Vučić from Mandić, whom he no longer controls), is ingratiating himself with European officials, and through Dodik's contacts in Israel, is trying to gain entry into the American Republican Party.

Unlike Spajić's PES and Bečić's Democrats - Mandić is the only one in the country who is engaged in politics in the true sense of the word, accumulating his power. He is looking for alliances, controls the Radio and Television of Montenegro, and with some porous political representatives of Montenegrin Bosniaks and Montenegrin Albanians he is implementing ethno-federalization - he divides the state's spoils according to the national key, perfectly aware that at the end of the day he benefits the most from it. The wounded side of such a distribution of relations is first Montenegro and its social fabric, and then the Montenegrins.

Aleksa Bečić's Democratic Montenegro (Democrats/DCG) controls the army and police. Its leader, Aleksa Bečić, is persona non grata in Croatia. This title bothers him greatly and he is reportedly trying to lobby for its abolition. The Democrats once presented themselves as a conciliatory story that would overcome national divisions and bring "victories, not divisions". In the meantime, they have proven to be the most incompetent in the Montenegrin government, and in every delicate situation, they are servile to both Vučić and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and they are also at the forefront of party recruitment.

Schizophrenia of the authorities

The death of Ratko Mladić was the latest symptomatic event in exposing the schizophrenia of this government. For some in power, he is a hero, for some a criminal, and for some one or the other – but they do not even dare to speak out about it. So the Europeans Spajić and Bečić remain silent, Mandić sends his condolences to the war criminal's family, for some in the Socialist People's Party (SNP) he is a hero, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and leader of the Bosniak Party (BS) Ervin Ibrahimović says that this man "deserves nothing but contempt, both alive and dead".

But this contempt for Ibrahimović is clearly not enough to make him leave the government in which he is with the Chetnik duke and those for whom Mladić is a hero, and to enter that government he once received the support of the president of the Movement of Mothers of the Enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa, which is a sad detail. Now he announces that the BS will vote for the opposition initiative to dismiss Mandić, but it seems that only after it became obvious that the opposition will not have enough votes for dismissal. Mandić responds to this with a supposedly generous message that "reconciliation is shown when it is most difficult, we understand the decision of the Bosniak Party". A storm in a glass of water, everything is coordinated and everything remains the same.

This situation has once again shown that the current government is an amalgam of a series of personal and party interests, without a real value component, with Mandić's Chetnik component being the only one who knows what to do in the long term, and is riding the wave gifted by the European Union for free.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is a veto player in Montenegro. Its primary leverage over decision-makers is their fear of being disapproved of, but there are also leverages in terms of personnel, financial, and family pressure.

For example, Metropolitan Joanikije Mićović can speak of the notorious war criminal from World War II, Chetnik commander and Lieutenant Colonel Pavle Đurišić, as a "great hero of invincible character", and Metropolitan Metodije Ostojić can hug and kiss his bronze statue - and the government remains silent about it, and the opposition reacts lukewarmly.

Belgrade's relationship with Montenegro has also changed significantly on the issue of the church. Namely, Vučić and his loyalist Porfirije Perić are doing everything they can to ensure that the episode of unpredictability of the church's behavior in Montenegro that they had with the late Amfilohije Radović, who was Vučić's enemy, does not repeat itself. To this end, the Belgrade headquarters is personnel-cleansing the church structure on the territory of Montenegro of the last remnants of those who were in the least in favor of some kind of agreement with the Montenegrins or who at least wanted to give the primacy of gatherings to religious, and not national, ideological or intelligence-based.

By granting the personal title of Metropolitan Metodije, alongside the already existing metropolitan, and without changing the status of his eparchy, Belgrade is openly trampling on the previous tradition in which the metropolitan of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral had coordination primacy over the other three eparchies, parts of which are located on the territory of Montenegro, and recently there have been increasingly loud whispers about the possibility of creating the Boka Kotorska eparchy to the detriment of the metropolitanate, i.e. the further fragmentation of church territory, in order to ensure maximum obedience to the regime in Belgrade of all SPC components on the state soil of Montenegro.

Joanikije and Metodije are not on the best of terms – Joanikije is pragmatically somewhat closer to Mandić, and Metodije is fanatically loyal to Vučić. However, in key matters they think identically – they do not like Montenegrins, Croats, Albanians, Bosniaks and Montenegrin independence, and they like Pavle Đurišić and Ratko Mladić.

Spoiled by three decades of absolute power and drilled through years of negative selection, the Montenegrin opposition has continued to behave as if it were still in power since losing power on August 30, 2020 – slow, arrogant, boring and a failure. Sincerely believing that the loss of power was not a generational warning and a huge challenge, but only a short-term anomaly, looking for some combination for an express return to the saddle – it lost 6 years without doing anything, and this with a government that served it with stumbles and embarrassments day and night.

Since losing power in 2020, the Montenegrin opposition has lost almost all local, parliamentary, and presidential election contests, more than 20 of them.

The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) is the largest opposition structure. The party is in a kind of limbo. On the one hand, it enjoys a solid percentage of support, and on the other hand, it is perceived as isolated from any coalition that leads to power. On the one hand, it has nominally rejuvenated its leadership, and on the other hand, the sectarian-bureaucratic way of operating has remained the same, and it seems that actual decisions are made in the same way, from the party's backrooms.

This party is approaching the 2027 elections with the losing tactic of waiting.

The smaller opposition column, the European Alliance (EA), made up of several smaller parties with a Montenegrin slant, is a heterogeneous structure made up of both healthy parts and individuals of questionable value, which makes it easy for opponents to easily write off the entire story in public and in the media. The Alliance lacks a strong front, the courage to take a serious step forward, and daily political and media penetration.

30 years of one government have left their mark on both the Montenegrin intellectual scene and Montenegrin civil society. With a few honorable exceptions that have consistently worked both then and now – one part of the scene, fixated on the DPS, fell silent and disappeared with its fall from power on 30.8.2020, another part has been smooth sailing with the new government, and the rest is intertwined with relations with the former government to the extent that it is in a permanent waiting phase – waiting for a savior who does not exist (and will not exist in that form) or desperately seeking salvation in former leaders who have long had nothing to offer in this era.

Hybrid influence

The key to Vučić's influence in Montenegro lay in his approach to diversifying his ideological and intelligence portfolio. He exercised and still exercises, to some extent, both direct and individual influence over a number of individuals, parties, media, financial institutions, non-governmental and cultural organizations. He influenced many, but not in the same way and not to the same extent.

In terms of direct influence, an important operational and financial role was played by the Vojvodina branch of the Serbian Progressive Party, initially gathered around Igor Mirović, and then around former Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, which for years served as a network hub and contact point with the regime for various random travelers from Montenegro who put themselves in the service of another state.

Explicit examples of Vučić's interference in the Montenegrin elections are the two so-called Battles for Nikšić, from March 2021 and April 2025, in which Mandić's party colleague Marko Kovačević (with the significant nickname Šubara) first won and then retained power in that important Montenegrin city. The SNS provided strong tabloid propaganda and field support to Kovačević (at that time Mandić and Vučić were in love), and these elections were accompanied by suspicions of the import of money to buy votes and voters from eastern Herzegovina.

But the influence on the Montenegrin scene itself was much broader. In terms of individual influence, Vučić's regime used instruments of fear and instruments of family pressure. Prime Minister Spajić was preemptively bombarded by the Vučić regime in the media at the dawn of the formation of the government in the fall of 2023, letting him know that he had to rely on the parliamentary support of the NSD and DNP and agree on their subsequent entry into the government, rather than forming a government with opposition pro-Montenegrin parties.

When, after the Podgorica elections in the fall of 2024, the possibility of a change of government in the capital and a possible wave of broader changes in the country emerged, with President Milatović and his structure being the tipping point - and contrary to everything announced, suddenly saving the new-old government - it was widely said that this was ensured by threats from well-known criminals from the 1990s to which Milatović's brother, who lives in Serbia and allegedly does business with the state there, was exposed.

Dritan Abazović, a nominally green-left politician and at one time a modern minority in the eyes of Europe, was expected to strongly support Serbian students, and he was not allowed to speak out against Vučić all the time, partly because of his personal cowardice and connections with nationalist circles in Serbia, and partly because of his brother's business interests in Belgrade. Bečić and the Democrats were allegedly blackmailed with various personal and academic compromising materials, and if it didn't work personally, the fear of the Serbian Orthodox Church certainly did.

Vučić has exercised his influence on a significant part of Montenegrin newspapers, television stations and portals (more than half of them) indirectly, through the ownership, management and personnel connections of these media with Serbia and its ruling structure. There is currently an attempt to take over the most influential Montenegrin media group, Vijesti, by the Alpac Capital fund, which is linked to Vučić through capital close to Viktor Orban.

Recently, through certain columnists and analysts in Montenegro, the thesis of competing influences from outside has begun to be promoted, emphasizing the alleged Croatian influence and immediately equating it with that from Serbia. According to this thesis, two equally malignant influences from outside of opposite sign harm Montenegro, and the solution is some internal middle ground. This thesis is factually incorrect, but also quite cunning and utilitarian.

Namely, it turns out that Croatian demands for Montenegro are on the European path, and they are mainly demands of a civilizational nature (compensation to concentration camp inmates, the issue of missing persons, the prosecution of war crimes, property issues) and in connection with the training ship Jadran (whose (ir)importance, of course, can be debated) - the same as the round-the-clock hate campaigns in the Serbian regime media, the blackmailing of Montenegrin officials, proactive interference in Montenegrin elections, and the hostile takeover of the media in Montenegro.

The goal of such false parity is to give a perceptual boost to the one who is now “equally removed from both Vučić and Plenković” – the supposedly Europeanized Andrija Mandić. Incidentally, the topic of the ship Jadran is entertaining because it features entities such as Vučić’s inflammatory portal Borba, the Greater Serbian NGO Miholjski zbor, and the fickle Abazović – suddenly and for one occasion becoming fierce Montenegrin sovereignists.

In mid-2027, Montenegro will face its most important elections since 1997, in my opinion more important than both the 2006 referendum and the 2020 parliamentary elections. Many will disagree with this and say that this is too strong a claim. But why is this the case?

If the 2006 referendum had somehow failed, the Montenegrin drive for independence would not have failed either; on the contrary, it would have returned even stronger, with a higher percentage of support in society. The deep waves in society were exactly that – the desire for one's own state and to decide one's own destiny.

Likewise, August 30, 2020 did not have to be a one-way street – if the former government and the current opposition had understood its lessons correctly and in time – that date could have been an opportunity to correct the numerous negativities of the government that fell in 2020, to purify and restore a healthier, long-term sustainable story, or to create something better on the ruins of the past. But 2006 was taken for granted, and 2020 was not used for regeneration.

Battle for the soul

Now we face elections of a different nature, elections that will either halt or cement negative internal trends, not for years to come, but for decades. The deep waves in society are different this time, less favorable for Montenegro. 2027 is a battle for the character of the state, for its soul and its health.

The political scene is in a kind of stalemate ahead of these elections. The government is shaky and uncertain about its survival, but it still has some economic and plenty of foreign policy maneuvering room to survive, while the opposition is in a slightly better state than before, but with an unclear trajectory towards power and without any signs of social momentum that would increase its chances for power.

Spajić does not control his own party, Mandić is threatened with a setback at the polls due to an external turn, and Bečić is struggling to cross the electoral threshold. However, even in such a situation – a not very convincing opposition for now leaves the possibility of survival of this and this kind of government.

If the 2027 elections bring about the beginning of a radical change in the internal political situation in the direction of a true market economy, intelligent strengthening of state and national security institutions, and common-sense agreement in society without dependence on predatory actors from outside and Trojan horses from within - Montenegro has something to hope for.

If, however, Spajić's absence, Bečić's incompetence, and Mandić's capillary strengthening continue after the 2027 elections, Montenegro is in danger of becoming a state of "people and nationalities", a small Yugoslavia, a tribal-contractual community with not very bright prospects for life and prosperity in the decades to come. And all this with an emerging European stamp.