It is certain that no party or coalition will announce the name of its presidential candidate before the end of the elections in Berane and Ulcinj on February 4, while in the meantime they are peeping into the yards of political competition.
Although it is almost certain that the opposition cannot agree on a common candidate, the DPS say that, for now, they are waiting to see how things will unfold on the opposite side. In the ruling party, they are weighing between the president of the party Milo Đukanović and the former president of that party, ambassador and minister of defense Milica Pejanović Đurišić, who in informal contacts denies the possibility of candidacy.
Prime Minister Duško Marković indirectly announced that the story was not reduced to Đukanović last week, stating that the DPS candidate "whoever he is by name will surely win convincingly".
The interlocutor of "Vijesti" from the top of the DPS said that it is "very possible" that Pejanović Đurišić will be a candidate in the elections on April 15.
"(Aleksa) Bečić has a better chance against her than against Đukanović. Đukanović would win in the first round. I am not sure about the others that are mentioned," said that source.
As the main shortcoming of Pejanović-Đurišić, interlocutors from the DPS cite estimates that a part of their voters would not support her, regardless of the fact that she could count on a part of the opposition votes, primarily from the SDP and the URA movement.
They remind us that there was a similar situation with Filip Vujanović when the estimates indicated that the part of the votes from the DPS that he lost would be made up from the opposition electorate.
Credible opposition interlocutors are generally convinced that Djukanovic will run, regardless of the fact that, as two of them state, he received a message from part of the American administration that he should not do so.
"It is possible that Đukanović is delaying the announcement of his candidacy precisely in order to reduce the time of some action from the outside," said one interlocutor.
For Đukanović, as the interlocutor explains, it is "too risky" for Marković to remain prime minister and Pejanović Đurišić to win the presidential elections.
On the other hand, the candidacy of the leader of the Democrats, Aleksa Bečić, is practically certain, but he has put himself in a rather ungrateful position - to be the main culprit because the opposition or its part that calls itself civil does not have a common candidate.
Bečić started negotiations with Dritan Abazović behind the backs of the rest of the civil opposition precisely in order, as it is interpreted, to reduce the damage in the event of an attack that he was to blame for the opposition not having a common candidate or to declare URA guilty in the event of defeat.
Information about who initiated the bilateral negotiations is conflicting, but in any case they have gone far. Thus, according to "Vijesti" sources, Bečić offered Abazović 30 percent of the seats on joint lists for local elections in 12 cities, whereby the URA should support him in the presidential elections.
It probably answers to Abazović that he "doesn't spend" in the presidential elections and that he negotiates a coalition performance in local elections in 12 municipalities, which would ensure existence in municipalities where URA has weak committees. On the other hand, in the URA itself, part of the officials are afraid that the Democrats will not "suck them up" like, as one of them said, the New Serbian Democracy Movement for Change.
That double pact put the other champions of the civil opposition in a situation where they plan how to protect their own electorate, even though Ranko Krivokapić, Miodrag Lekić and Vladimir Joković advocated a united performance of five parties in the presidential and local elections.
SDP is still weighing between Krivokapić and Vuksanović
Sources from the SDP state that the party will probably have its own candidate in the elections, Krivokapić or possibly MP Draginja Vuksanović.
The SDP-Demos coalition in Berane is a response to the negotiations between the URA and the Democrats, but it could also be a rehearsal for a joint performance in the presidential and local elections.
The DF has long advocated for a joint candidate of the opposition, a non-party personality, but that option has been problematic since the first moment when it was suggested during one of the visits of the DF leader in Russia. A high-ranking official of the DF denied the possibility that the alliance would change its mind and nominate someone from the party establishment.
This could be justified by the fact that most parties have their own representatives. He rejected the possibility that university professor Vlado Božović would be kicked out in front of him, but he spoke very positively about Andrija Jovićević.
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