If you were to choose a word after 13 years since Montenegro regained its independence, then it would certainly be the word - protest.
Protests were made, with more or less success, due to the felling of old cypresses in the courtyard of the Bar gymnasium, due to the planned construction of bungalows near the Black Lake in the protected area of the national park "Durmitor", due to the intention to build a military training ground in Sinjajevina, a mini-hydroelectric plant in Bukovica, but also the "Envelope" affair, which fundamentally shook the power of the DPS and Milo Đukanović, confirmed Brussels' assessment of the captured state and its institutions, but also for the umpteenth time exposed all the opposition's already chronic weaknesses.
All these protests were initiated by locals or informal groups of citizens, of which the "Resist" movement stood out.
Thus, for the first time, citizens in Montenegro showed a stronger desire to participate in the decision-making process, to change things and political elites displaced from reality.
In most of the previous 12 years, almost all the burden of correcting the government was on the backs of the media and non-governmental organizations, whose influence weakened under the daily pressures of the government and its close circles. In their efforts to democratize Cru Gora, the civil sector and the media found a partner in the international community, which is now rather indifferent when it comes to events in Montenegro.
The only case where an international factor was involved was the imprisonment of one of the leaders of the Democratic Front, Nebojsa Medojević, and the intention to do the same to his colleague Milan Knežević.
Despite his immunity, Medojević was imprisoned based on the decision of the High Court, which was requested by the chief special prosecutor Milivoje Katnić, because the DF deputy did not testify as expected of him.
Then, as could be heard in the public, the German embassy in Podgorica became actively involved.
But while the top of the Montenegrin government was afraid of even a sneeze from one of the more influential embassies until a few years ago, now it is not afraid even when Washington and Brussels wave their clubs.
Thus, at the beginning of the 13th year of independence, the DPS put the Public Service under the party mantle again, despite the strong reaction of the State Department and the European Commission, then Veselin Veljović was returned to the head of the Police Directorate, although some ambassadors of influential countries shook their heads that this should not be done, while with the candidacy of former ANB official Zoran Lazović for a position in the Police Directorate, the views of Western partners continued to be ignored.
At the same time, part of the opposition assesses that Lazović's candidacy is the result of intra-clan struggles and the biggest test for Prime Minister Duško Marković that Djukanović has set for him since he returned to the throne to meet the thirteenth anniversary of independence.
Meanwhile, Marković is in the growing shadow of Đukanović.
This is best seen on the international stage where the omnipresent head of party and state dominates, even where he does not belong. For example, at the annual meeting with the EBRD in Sarajevo, where he was the only president in the company of the prime ministers of all the other countries of the Western Balkans.
It is speculated in political circles that this is part of the DPS strategy in order for Đukanović to try to restore his well-shaken reputation in the domestic and foreign public after the accused president of the Atlas Group, Duško Knežević, made serious accusations when it comes to the purchase of EPCG shares, the first million. "Telecom" affair.
As an argument for this thesis, they cite the importance that the regime's media attach to Đukanović's participation in the influential Sedona Forum, at the same time ignoring the fact that he was not received at any official address in the USA.
Or, the importance given to the invitation to Đukanović for the Berlin meeting attended by all the leaders of the former Yugoslav republics and Albania, where the hosts, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, probably wanted Đukanović at the table because of his relations with Hashim Thaci and Aleksand Vučić.
It was Vučić's Serbia that, in the 13th year of independence, returned to the focus of interest of the political public in Montenegro, after Russia had taken its place.
Relations between the two countries were cold-cold-warm throughout the year.
The facts are that Svetozar Marović is still in Belgrade, that moves such as the alleged ban on the entry of a group of public figures from Serbia into Montenegro are a political show at the level of folklore, that the Government and DPS call for the defense of national interests only when they are shot in the back. As an invitation from the Government to the Agency for Electronic Media to react to the shows of a "remarkable format" on TV Heppy and TV Pink for insulting Đukanović - who used those same media hires to deal with dissidents in Montenegro.
Vučić, who is ubiquitous in the media, did not comment on the verdict in the coup d'état case, although he previously said that politicians from Montenegro were not involved, while the others arrested were "bashibozuk".
The word "judgment" could be the key word in the 13th year since independence, but the decision of the High Court to sentence Andrija Mandić and Milan Knežević to five years each in the first-instance proceedings will be the subject of further court proceedings that will certainly affect further events on the Montenegrin political scene. .
In the opposition field, everything was almost identical to what we saw in previous years, only with slightly changed actors. Just as from 2009 to 2010 Mandić, Predrag Bulatović and Nebojša Medojević tried to impose themselves in European capitals as a pro-European alternative to the DPS, so half a year ago Aleksa Bečić and Dritan Abazović, whose coalition "For 21 . century" fell apart, even though it achieved a satisfactory result in the local elections held last spring.
The only things that should be highlighted are that the Albanian national parties chose the Democrats as their partner in Tuzi rather than the DPS, thus sending a wider message that the strongest party is, in fact, the one that everyone accepts only out of convenience and necessity. There is also the announcement by SDP leader Ranko Krivokapić that he is stepping down from office after the fall of the government in Kotor, for which the opposition public recognized him as the culprit.
And while the government boasted about the growth and inflow of foreign investments, the opening of a couple of new hotels and the growth of the GDP, which is among the highest in Europe, although the citizens do not feel it, the public could watch on a weekly basis the increasingly pronounced incompetence of the governing staff, the wasteful spending of citizens' money , political employment...
Meanwhile, in the reports of all relevant international organizations, Montenegro is stagnating or falling - due to the growth of public debt, unexplained attacks on journalists, decline in political freedoms, politicization of the judiciary and corruption. That, experience shows, is a bill that will surely come due in the 14th or some of the following years since the restoration of independence.
Autocracy, greed and henchmen destroy the state and society
"The challenges today are the same as they were 100 years ago - the founders of the state at the time, using swords and weapons, and some of its "renovators" today, suffer from the same disease - identifying themselves with the state", said Ivan Vujović, a member of the SDP presidency. Today's "defenders" of the state, says Vujović, intoxicated by lust for power, and many by greed and greed, do not learn the lessons of history - at the same time not realizing that such people are increasingly becoming a greater threat to the state than traditional opponents.
"The fact that international circumstances are fortunately in our favor today can be very deceiving," he adds. According to Vujović, the logic of self-sufficiency, party identification with the state, hoarding loot and welcoming all well-intentioned critics to the knife creates an army of dissatisfied and frustrated individuals and groups, which destabilizes social relations and potentially destroys the state as well. "The legitimation basis of the state must be expanded - that's the only way we can strengthen state-building awareness and awareness of belonging to the state. The recipe for that is for the obedient and unknown to give way to those with knowledge, professional dignity and solid character," adds Vujović.
Bogdanović: Everything is perfect only in the eyes of the last despotic dynasty
"Democracy has been delaying us for thirteen years and everything indicates that this delay will last exactly as long as the survival of this nomenclature in power in Montenegro," says Secretary General of the Democrats Boris Bogdanović.
One thing, he says, is certain - democracy is not conducive to a climate in which elections are a matter that is resolved with envelopes, bags, suitcases or black bags.
He says that "from the point of view of the Đukanović brothers and sisters, the last European despotic dynasty, everything in Montenegro works perfectly and should continue like that: "On dates such as May 21, citizens must be divided and quarreled in order to unite their heads that the one who lives next to them is not and must not be a neighbor, fellow citizen, friend, godfather, brother, but only an enemy and a traitor, and that only because his name is Nikola, Lovre or Hamza," added Bogdanović ironically.
Nikolić: DPS center of all successes, opposition leaders to look at themselves in the mirror
DPS MP Miloš Nikolić said that after 13 years since the restoration of independence, we can be satisfied with the state's achievements. He reminds that today Montenegro is a member of NATO, a leader in the process of European integration with 32 of 33 negotiation chapters open and 3 closed.
"Some of the largest infrastructure projects in the history of the country have been implemented or started, and the share of FDI in GDP of around 18 percent on average speaks volumes about the attractiveness of investments in Montenegro", specified Nikolić. The MP of the DPS says that he believes that all these are achievements that we can be satisfied with, and that the central political force behind the achievement of all these successes was the DPS.
"When we talk about bad things, it seems to me that all these results would have been achieved faster if the whole of Montenegrin society was not burdened by constant politicization and the opposition's attempts to accuse DPS and its coalition partners of all their weaknesses.
"I believe that the opposition and its leaders should face their own weaknesses and take responsibility for all past failures and thus relax the social and political scene of Montenegro," said Nikolić.
Vučurović: The only country in Europe where opposition leaders are tried
"We have a dictatorship, the last in Europe, which fraudulently entered NATO without the support of the citizens, in which terror is carried out against the opposition and its leaders, elections are stolen, and the streets have been turned into a scene of war and liquidation between mafia clans. So, how far Montenegro has "progressed" in the field of democracy is best expressed by the fact that, in 2019, the leaders of the opposition are being sentenced to five years in prison in a rigged court process, without any evidence," says the DF deputy.
This, he states, is not 2019 but 1948. "The government is the same, the methods are the same, and the followers and accomplices of the government in the judiciary are the same. In the end, in these 13 years, the regime did everything to make Montenegro what it never was, to spit on our ancestors, traditions, and values for which it was known, and to promote betrayal, sales, and serving the interests of foreign centers. power," he claims.
Danilović: Montenegro is governed by a political jet-set
United Montenegro MP Goran Danilović says that not much progress has been made in democratization: "If we were to look for the culprit, then he is dominantly in the government, which convulsively adheres to the rule that they must never and under no circumstances lose elections because they lose money, and probably freedom.
To my great regret and to the regret of the citizens, the inability of the opposition is to at least for a moment eliminate the differences and, in a technical sense, enable unity that would bring about changes".
Danilović claims that the NGO sector has not developed either and that "grants have become more important than the task of the civil sector, the media are left to fight independent battles, for their own space, for their own freedom."
"It is no longer a problem that Montenegro is independent, but that its independence is governed by the private and personal interest of a political jet-set established in the meantime without state responsibility. If we continue like this for a decade, I'm afraid we won't have anything to pass on to our children and grandchildren in the future," he said.
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