The government in Montenegro, a country in the heart of Europe, did not change with ballots until the last election. The new, democratic government will address religious and ethnic divisions and accelerate the country's westward course.
Zdravko Krivokapić, the holder of the "Coalition for the Future of Montenegro" list and the representative for the composition of the new government, wrote this in his author's text for the "Washington Times".
"This week, the people of Montenegro witnessed a miracle: the defeat, after 30 continuous years in power, of a corrupt government that rigged votes, persecuted Christians and deceived minorities.
Instead, a new, democratic coalition was elected, built with the intention of healing religious and ethnic communities, and to create a country where we can celebrate differences as much as our common, Montenegrin identity.
For three decades, the international community gave the president and his communist-to-democratic socialist party the "benefit of the doubt." Montenegro joined NATO, opened negotiations on joining the EU, and the world jet-set brought much-needed investment and development along our enchanting coastline.
But inside, people were suffocating. Perhaps because our country with about 600.000 citizens is so small and because it was well masked by the president and his family - the international community only occasionally reacted to their clientelism, their undermining of the rule of law and their construction of a one-party state. 29 years passed before Montenegro was reduced from a "new democracy" to a "hybrid-authoritarian regime", a fact of life that was already obvious to every Montenegrin, decades before.
In our upcoming task, we call on the international community for both understanding and support. The government in our country has never before been changed by voting. In our new "Montenegro Spring", we ask you to set aside much of what you have been falsely told about the incoming parties – and base your approach not on the words of politicians now past, but on the actions of our new government.
Most of Montenegro's external appearance in the international community is a false gloss carefully constructed by the outgoing regime to create an impression of progress in the West - and to divert attention from state control and the lack of progress for the majority in the country. For decades they claimed to be a pro-Western party, while they labeled every individual and party of our new ruling coalition as the complete opposite.
Last week, we decisively began the process of debunking all of their erroneous claims. By signing the agreement by all three members of the new ruling coalition, we guaranteed not only the continuation of Montenegro's accession to NATO, but also that we will deepen our place in the alliance; and we also committed to accelerate the reforms that will bring our country into the European Union.
We are now rapidly moving to resolve the internal divisions caused by the former government's attempt to steal the property of the 800-year-old Orthodox Church to which the majority of our citizens belong, as well as ensuring justice for Montenegrin Muslims who were victims of violence carried out by the state in the north of the country, before and after the elections .
The unconstitutional state law by which the former government attempted to legalize the theft of religious property, as well as the persecution of Christians that the Commission on International Religious Freedom of the United States and members of the British Parliament rightly condemned, will be ended; and anyone protected by the outgoing regime who is responsible for pre-election and post-election attacks on Muslim communities - will face justice.
For those suffering the economic effects of the tourism-based economy during the global health pandemic, the new government must introduce financial support. The outgoing government did absolutely nothing except claim, perversely and shamefully, that covid actually created a labor shortage. With months lost and tens of thousands of jobs lost, we will move to urgently establish a financial package that will first help families and small businesses, while at the same time we will strive to improve relations with neighboring countries that are the source of a large percentage of tourists each year.
However, we can only get a lot done in partnership with the international community, especially the United States, Great Britain and the European Union. The complex task of investigating decades of economic looting and offshore bank accounts that generated profits from the exploitation of state assets, as well as investigating the dubious deals of the outgoing elite - can only succeed with international support.
Thus, the rule of law and legal systems in Montenegro are weak after several decades of clientelism. We must renew them, where necessary with international advisers and expertise, to ensure that the Act as written is applied fairly in practice and that political power is not an obstacle to prosecution and crimes committed in public office.
There is so much to do. Our country did not, as is widely believed, become a free, open and democratic society some 30 years ago, when communism collapsed everywhere in Eastern and Southeastern Europe: It became a nation in deep freeze, trapped under the same, single ruling party - only with a new name and logo. The Montenegrin "Democracy Generation" is only coming into office today.
The Montenegro that the West has come to know is not the same country where Montenegrin citizens have been living for a long time. It is time for the two to become one: for the outer, western, open and hospitable Montenegro to be the same for those who live there and for those who come every year to decorate our magical shores. Democracy may have arrived at the beginning of autumn, but it is spring in Montenegro," states the author's text by Krivokapić.
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