The key political actors, who have announced their participation in the presidential elections, are not announcing the names of the candidates yet, because they are calculating while waiting for the moves of the other party, the interlocutors of "Vijesti" said, who believe that the presidential nomination is only one card in the deck of distribution of the future "depth" and " width”.
Executive Director of CEDEM Milena Bešić reminds that the deadline for submitting candidacies is getting closer, and reluctance to go public with names shortens the campaign, which is not in favor of candidates who do not already have a certain rating among voters.
Civic activist Stefan Djukic he said that it is very possible that the future president of Montenegro does not even know that he will run for office at this moment.
They announced that they will have candidates from DPS, then from the majority parties, the Democratic Front and Democratic Montenegro, as well as from the Europe Now Movement (PES), but they have not announced the final decision and names yet.
Bešić assesses that, as before, whenever an important decision is involved, political actors deal with calculations, which largely depend on predicting the moves of the opposite party.
"Apparently, the DPS candidate is waiting, i.e. the question of all questions is whether (Milo) Djukanovic run again. If that is their choice, it is very possible that they will wait for the candidacy until the very end of the deadline", said Bešić for "Vijesti".
Đukić believes that the current president of the state and DPS, Milo Đukanović, will not run because his chances of winning are "really low and he does not want to end his career with an electoral defeat."
"Although he is the key reason for this series of electoral defeats of DPS, other people were at the head of those lists (Dusko Markovic, Ivan Vukovic, etc.) and symbolically, Đukanović does not want that to happen to him. He has the opportunity to do what he missed in January 2021, to open the space for DPS reforms with his withdrawal," said Đukić.
Bešić says that if Đukanović were to run for office and lose, he would hardly be able to remain at the head of the party, and that would certainly cause changes within the party.
"However, if there is another DPS candidate in the presidential 'race' around whom the public is not so divided, as in the case of Đukanović, and someone whose biography is not burdened with affairs, such a candidate could receive the support of some abstainers and voters from the other part of the sovereignist bloc, and that would be a sign of a different way of thinking within the party that lost in the 2020 elections", believes Bešić.
On the other side, as she added, one could expect several different candidates, so it is difficult to predict who would be in the second round in that case.
Bešić reminds that the CEDEM survey from December last year showed that Đukanović does not have much of a chance if he had as an opponent someone to whom the current parliamentary majority would give joint support.
According to the research results, if Đukanović were to run again, 24,4 percent of citizens would certainly vote for him in the elections, while 39 percent would support one of the opposing candidates.
Đukić believes that from the point of view of the parties, the presidential elections are a prelude to the inevitable extraordinary parliamentary elections, whenever they are called.
"It is likely that these elections will give a more stable majority and a government that will have a chance to last longer than the 'minority' and 'expert' one, and thus mean more employment for the political class, safer funds and everything else that truly interests our party members. That's why tactics take a long time, every agreement should be part of a wider 'package' of positions and the presidential nomination is just one card in the deck of distribution of future 'depth' and 'breadth'", emphasized Đukić.
The presidential elections are scheduled for March 19, and candidacies can be submitted until February 26. The State Election Commission (SEC) will publish the list of participants in the presidential elections no later than March 3.
DPS announced this week that they have started internal party consultations about the candidate. Đukanović and the former president of that party and the former minister of defense are mentioned as the most serious candidates in the public. Milica Pejanović Đurišić. Minor opposition parties are ready to support her as a common candidate of the opposition. She did not advertise on that occasion.
The Europe Now Movement announced on Thursday evening after the session of the Presidency that various options for participating in the elections were discussed, and that it was decided to organize the collection of signatures in the coming days and to convene the Main Committee, where the "proposals of decisions on participation" would be verified in the electoral process".
Party leaders are mentioned as potential candidates Milojko Spajic i Jakov Milatovic and vice president Olivera Injac. From that party, they said that one option is to support "someone from the side".
The Socialist People's Party (SNP) has repeatedly said that the parliamentary majority should have a common candidate and that it would be best if it were Miodrag Lekić (Demos).
Lekić participated as an independent candidate in the presidential elections in 2013, when the DPS candidate narrowly won Filip Vujanovic. Part of the public still doubts the regularity of those elections, believing that Lekić received more votes than Vujanović...
In GP URA, too, they believe that a common candidate is a good solution.
Leader of that party and prime minister in technical mandate Dritan Abazovic he said on Friday that it would be best if they had a common, civilian presidential candidate.
Answering questions from journalists in Kotor, he said that it would be a step further if it were a woman.
"The most important thing is that Montenegro gets a new president. I am sure that he will be much more cooperative in realizing the national interests of Montenegro," said Abazović.
Member of Parliament and member of the Presidency of the United Montenegro Vladimir Dobričanin he said that they started collecting signatures for the presidential candidacy of the leader of that party Goran Danilović.
He said that he is sure that Danilović will accept the candidacy at the session of the Main Board of Uježdinjena, which should be held around February 10.
And Vukšić in the race?
The Christian Democratic Party will nominate the former head of the National Security Agency (ANB) Dejan Vukšić for the position of first man of the state, announced Television Vijesti.
The Christian Democratic Party was founded by Vukšić and former Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić in August last year.
In 2020, Krivokapić and Vukšić, as non-party figures, led the coalitions "For the future of Montenegro" and "For the future of Kotor" in the parliamentary and local elections in Kotor.
The key constituent of those coalitions was the Democratic Front, and Vukšić and Krivokapić, after being elected to office, came into conflict with that alliance, from which they were accused of working against their interests.
The majority is against the DPS candidate
According to the Law on the Election of the President, if no candidate receives more than half of the valid votes, a second election round is held in 14 days. The two candidates who received the largest number of votes take part in it.
DF have already announced that they are ready to support Djukanović's opponent in the second round, even if he is not from DF.
"If it happens, hypothetically, that one of the candidates from the 'ambassador' bloc finds himself in the second round, opposed to the DPS candidate, we will certainly support that candidate," said Milan Knežević, one of the leaders of the DF, on the Načisto show on Thursday. .
He said that they have already collected ten thousand signatures from citizens for their candidate, and from that alliance they are announcing that one of their leaders, Andrija Mandić, will be a candidate if DPS nominates Đukanović.
The SNP told "Vijesti" that a joint candidate would have already convincingly defeated Đukanović in the first round.
"There is no need to think about options that involve organizing a second round when we can finish everything in the first round of presidential elections. Our priority is the full empowerment of DPS. If it is a priority for others, then we will easily agree on who is that candidate whom we will all sincerely support and who wins convincingly on March 19", they answered the question of "Vijesti" whether they would support the DPS opponent in the second round - in.
The leader of the Democrats, Aleksa Bečić, said that his party will never vote for the DPS candidate.
On Friday, Bečić told the Voice of America that the Democrats will wait for some time for Europe's definitive response to the offer of a single candidate who "would probably triumph in the first round of elections." He repeated that if there is no joint candidate with Europe now, the Democrats will have their own.
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