The extraordinary congress of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) brought "changes" that guarantee the party's recognition as a political entity that is intolerant of criticism and is rarely ready to admit obvious mistakes, said the director of the MANS Research Center Dejan Milovac.
DPS re-elected Milo Đukanović as president at an extraordinary congress, the reason for which was the loss of parliamentary elections and a poor result in local elections in several municipalities, even though he said after the congress that he was ready to retire. Đukanović did not do this even when he was elected president of all citizens, explaining afterwards that it was not a legal obligation.
In his speech at and after the congress, he stuck to his earlier assertions that Serbia is encroaching on the sovereignty of its neighbors following the same recipe from the 90s, and that "SPC was brutally introduced to the political field in Montenegro as a proven most vicious instrument of Greater Serbian nationalism."
The vice-presidents of DPS are Ivan Vuković (mayor of Podgorica), Sanja Damjanović (former minister of science), Jevto Eraković (former director of the Clinical Center of Montenegro) and MP Abaz Dizdarević.
The main board has 180 members, and according to automaticity, its members are deputies as well as presidents of municipal boards.
Milan Roćen, Slavoljub Stijepović, Siniša Kusovac and Verica Maraš are no longer in the Main Board.
Long-time MPs and officials Branka Tanasijević, Filip Vuković, Miodrag Bobo Radunović, Miomir M. Mugoša, Marija Maja Ćatović and Zoran Vukčević are not in the Main Board.
In that party body, as previously announced by Đukanović, there are most of the new members, and recognizable names include Nikšić doctor and director of the Dark General Hospital Ilija Ašanin, former mayor of that municipality Veselin Grbović and current Milutin Simović, then from Podgorica former director of the Customs Administration and head of ANB Vladan Joković, president of the Chamber of Commerce Vlastimir Golubović, former deputy prime minister and judge Zoran Pažin, Đukanović's adviser and former general secretary of the government Nataša Pešić, former director of the Property Administration Blažo Saranović... The list also includes former minister Aleksandar Bogdanović, historian and former journalist Adnan Prekić..
"I am sure that no one expected that the "internal party lustration" would reach the very top of the party and that anyone would call Milo Đukanović to account for the obvious drop in ratings in the last elections," Dejan Milovac told "Vijesti".
The former prime minister, who was the deputy leader of the DPS, is no longer in the party leadership, and Đukanović said that this was due to changes. "Vijesti" previously announced that Marković's position was that the party should fundamentally change and that all those who carried its politics should no longer be in the first echelon.
"Although at the congress we could hear several replacements of the thesis, very characteristic of Đukanović, the responsibility for the defeat should be sought first of all in the fact that DPS has been leading a personnel policy for years and decades that is focused on providing, at all costs, personnel who are first loyal to the government, and only then to the law. This is precisely why the DPS has so far "given" the most municipal presidents and mayors that even such a prosecution could not prosecute, without at the same time sending a message to its ranks that, in the long term, such a practice can only lead to a loss of support in the elections." the interlocutor states.
That is why it is not surprising, explains Dejan Milovac, the party's promotion of the mayor of Podgorica, Ivan Vuković, to the position of vice-president of the DPS, even though it was expected before the next local elections in the capital.
"Until now, from the position of mayor, Vuković has shown absolute intolerance to well-argued criticism of the way he leads the city administration, but he has also shown that he is not unfamiliar with very serious violations of laws and regulations," says the interlocutor.
Đukanović said yesterday that more than half of the new members are in the GO, who are mostly unknown to the public.
The DPS announced that at the first session of the General Assembly, the president of the party proposes the composition of the Presidency, which, on his proposal, elects the general secretary. Former minister Predrag Bošković could be in that position, a "Vijesti" source said earlier. The President of the Political Council is elected by GO DPS, it is foreseen in the Statute of that party.
Milovac: Đukanović is still a pivot, although burdened with affairs
Milovac states that in the previous year, MANS repeatedly pointed out, with concrete examples, the fact that the behavior of Vuković in the chair of the first man of Podgorica is conditioned by interests that rarely coincide with the public, and even less with the law.
"Starting with the international tender that was concluded with a legally convicted person, through the use of development projects for the promotion of the DPS, all the way to the illegal recording of citizens through video surveillance. All of these are indicators of the political profile that the DPS now considers necessary in order to that party has reformed, but also how serious Đukanović is in that intention. This was quite evident after the Nikšić DPS elected Milutin Simović, the former head of the NKT, as the president of the municipality. This kind of framing leaves very little room for doubt that the announced changes in the largest opposition party are not cosmetic, especially when a good part of that political entity still sees Đukanović as a key pivot, despite the fact that his position at the head of the party and the state is still burdened by numerous unprocessed affairs", said Dejan Milovac.
Notice: In the previous version of the text, it was stated that not all DPS MPs are in the Main Board.
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