Methodologist Miloš Bešić believes that the publication of recordings from the sessions of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) will not particularly affect the upcoming presidential elections.
"No, not particularly, unfortunately. Unfortunately, from the point of view of civic awareness and the development of democratic capacities. The first key reason is that there are certain structural and situational variables that determine these voters. Superficial or situational variables, such as the Snapshot affair and the like, have always been rather less important than the key structural variables. We know that from before," explained Bešić in an interview with Radio Free Europe.
He also said that the structural variables are the basic social divisions that exist in Montenegro, first of all on the national level, and then they reflect on the political criteria: "They have their own social dimension and, to a very small extent, the civic dimension. We see this to a great extent in research. Those structural variables are determined by the attitudes of the actors".
Bešić also believes that when some situational variables occur, they are only a superficial and ideological argument for the political practice of the actors, who are already determined: "Then there is a problem. It is very difficult for them to make someone aware or influence their conscience or consciousness to change their ideological position. From that point of view, the affair will have very little effect."
He also assessed that now the vote is not for DPS but for a specific candidate, an individual in the form of Filip Vujanović or Miodrag Lekić.
"We had one visible shy reaction of Vujanović, as the president of the country, after the Snimak affair, where he asked the competent state authorities to check whether there were elements there. He even gave a reaction of conditional distancing, purely for the sake of prevention. When they decide on individuals, it is very difficult to find a direct connection between Vujanović, who is on the side of the DPS power structure, and the behavior of the DPS in the parliamentary elections, when they use clientelistic mechanisms. Those are the two key reasons why I personally believe that it will not significantly affect the outcome of the election," explained Bešić.
Speaking about the local elections in Nikšić, Bešić said that he does not expect the citizens to drastically change their opinion compared to the previous ones, after which no local government was formed.
"I believe that the balance of power will be more or less similar. Let's keep in mind that in the last unsuccessful election cycle, the ruling coalition lacked only one mandate. On the one hand, the entire strategy of the ruling coalition will be to replace one mandate. "The strategy of all other parties will be to keep or possibly increase the number of mandates, compared to those they achieved in the previous elections," he said.
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