Former Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic In the next fifteen days, the program and founders of the long-announced political party, which will be headed by him, will be announced, followed by its registration, "Vijesti" learns.
Marković recently resigned from membership in the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), in which he was the deputy president until three and a half years ago and on whose behalf he held high state functions until last year.
"The Initiative Committee of the party has been finalized, which has about 50 members, and there are doctors of science, professors, doctors, engineers, distinguished lawyers, economists in it. The only names in the new party known to the wider political public are Duško Marković and Sanja Damjanovic", said the source of "Vijesti" from the Initiative Board.
Damjanović is a scientist, former Minister of Science in Marković's government, and was vice-president of DPS until she resigned in November last year.
"ACHIEVED PERSONS ON THE BOARD"
"The board is made up of people who have not been involved in politics or are not recognized by the general public as party people. "We are talking about persons accomplished in their professions who want to contribute to the recovery of the political and public space, stability and overall progress of the country", said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
The source did not want to name any of those people until the press conference, "where the program manifesto and the Initiative Committee of the new party will be presented, which will be held between June 5 and 15."
"Vijesti" has learned that it has not yet been decided, among several options, what Marković's party will be called, but that the name will most likely include the adjective "European".
"The program of the party will be based on civilizational and European values. The civic character of society is the fundamental principle of its political activity. Not only in the political but also in the public space, more decency, culture and respect are needed. We need to eliminate the rhetoric of division into patriots and traitors and affirm mutual understanding, not to look for what separates us, but for what will bring us closer," said the newspaper's source.
CRITICIZED THE AUTHORITY, BUT ALSO THE DPS
Last November, in an interview with Gradska TV, Marković said that he was "thinking about forming a party".
"I haven't made a decision about it, but I'm thinking about it. "Not only about me forming a party, but what all needs to be done in the European and civil bloc in order to consolidate and for Montenegro to get out of this permanent risk of an abyss that is open to its future," said Marković at the time.
He said that people who belong to the European, sovereignist, civil Montenegro are calling and coming, they are disappointed and worried.
"They don't like a lot of things in this part of our politics and they would like something to change. Every day I have the opportunity to hear such thoughts, such objections, proposals, many of these proposals refer to me. I am someone who has learned to listen to interlocutors, even when I don't like it... I think your fears are justified," said Marković.
Several DPS officials told "Vijesta" after Marković's statement that they did not know about this intention of Marković, or that they thought "there is nothing to it". One former official said that it was a "told story". All the interlocutors denied being part of the story about the new party.
"Vijesti" sources said at the time that among the people who have been intensively talking with Marković for several months about the formation of a new party are former DPS officials, former ambassadors, prominent businessmen...
Marković criticized DPS in an interview with Gradska because of reforms that were personal and not broad, which he advocated.
"I advocated for broader reforms, but the option for only personal changes prevailed, which was not a good approach," said Marković, adding that immediately after the 2020 elections, he requested the holding of an extraordinary congress of the DPS in order to determine responsibility for the lost elections. In those elections, the DPS list bore the name of Milo Đukanović, and its leader was Marković.
At the DPS congress in January 2021, new leadership of the party body was elected, in which Marković was no longer a member. In political circles, it was speculated that Đukanović proposed to his deputy that they withdraw due to the arrival of young cadres, even that Marković himself stated this at one of the meetings of the party bodies. However, Đukanović remained the head of the party until the immediate elections in February this year, in which he replaced him Danijel Zivkovic.
Marković said in November 2023 that the DPS lost by a few thousand votes in 2020, i.e. it had about 140.000, and in the last elections in June last year it had 70.000.
According to him, there was pressure from both the international community and political competition to "leave the old and come the young", but now also "when the young come and say something that is not suitable for the top of the party, they are declared traitors".
DPS then said that Marković did not announce anything new and nothing that he had not said at party meetings.
Head of the DPS Parliamentary Club Andrija Nikolić, told "Vijesti" that Marković also "presented different views or some critical comments about the work of certain segments within the DPS" at party meetings.
“Mr. Marković has been a leader in the DPS for decades, and all those differences that we occasionally demonstrate at the meetings of our bodies, we present critical reviews ourselves, form one functional unit of the DPS, which is a large party and which always has different views in its ranks, which is normal," said Nikolić.
He said that Marković said that he was still part of that "functional environment".
"Of course, his voice is important and his voice is heard, and it will be like that as long as Mr. Marković will want to," said Nikolić. After that, there were no official statements from DPS about the formation of Marković's party.
In November, Marković criticized the opposition, saying that politics cannot be conducted via Twitter, but that one must constantly work with citizens on the ground.
He made a similar statement in the February interview "Pobjeda".
"Instead of concrete and systemic political actions - on the scene is the inflation of announcements and even individual views on social networks. Regardless of everything, I believe that there is a civic potential that can initiate the recovery of a European and civil Montenegro based on the values of a democratic and free society," Marković told Pobjeda.
The party will programmatically be based on civilizational and European values. The civic character of society is the fundamental principle of its political activity. More decency, culture and respect are needed not only in the political but also in the public space, said the "Vijesti" interlocutor.
"I have the impression that the opposition is not acting on the plan of winning power and gaining trust on the basis of credible and realistic policies, but its ambition is to enter the existing government in one form or another. It is an approach that puts the opposition in a subordinate position, which absolutely suits the current government".
He then asked how you can be in partnership with those who have this attitude towards the constitutional values of the state, be in a government that has ruined the health and education system, that is responsible for the crisis of institutions, that continues to encourage emigration, and not return to the hearths and which did not invest a single cent in the development of the north.
WHOSE VOTES HE CLAIMS
Since 2020, Marković has mainly advertised on his own account on the X network on the occasion of important dates from the Second World War and the anti-fascist history of Montenegro and national holidays, the anniversary of the founding of NATO, deaths Rafet Husović i Veljko Bulajić, expressed his condolences on the death of four residents of Plavlja in a traffic accident. He criticized the "desecration" of the national anthem, as well as the president Jakov Milatović, telling him to familiarize himself with the effects of his government, but he also defended the allocation of apartments to state officials at the time, for which an investigation is being conducted before the Special State Prosecutor's Office.
Political opponents believe that it is not clear whose votes Marković will aspire to when he establishes the party, as well as what is new that he has to offer, given that in his political career so far he has been seen as an inseparable part of the thirty-year rule of the DPS and all the anomalies that that period brought.
Some media announced that the party would be formed on May 21 and that its name would contain the word "socialist", or some variations (social, socialists). It was also speculated that Marković is forming a party with the former president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Raško Konjević, which he denied in an interview with "Vijesta" in December.
From the "black box", through the position of prime minister and defeat in the elections, to the return to active politics
Marković, who will soon turn 65, graduated from the Faculty of Law in Kragujevac, worked in the Brskovo mine, was the secretary of the municipality and then the president of the Mojkovac Municipality Assembly. He was appointed Secretary General of the Government in 1991.
He was a member of the DPS in the Parliament of Montenegro in the period 1997/98. in 1998, and in 2005 he became the Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs for the State Security Service, and he held that position until XNUMX. A year before that appointment, he was one of the six or seven who supported Milo Đukanović at the GO DPS session before the split in the party.
After the National Security Agency was formed in 2005, Đukanović appointed him as its first director. He was elected to this position once again in 2010, although he allegedly did not hide his dissatisfaction towards the end of not having the support of the party leader in the conflict with the then controversial ANB officials Zoran Lazović and Dusko Golubović.
They associated him with the so-called the Mojkovac clan and cigarette smuggling, which he repeatedly dismissed as "the most common nonsense".
Marković enjoyed awe in the party for a long time as the 12-year-old head of the secret police, although he claimed that what was in his head "remains a secret for all time". Critics accuse him of not even wanting to talk about unsolved murders from the period when he was head of the SDB.
Since 2010, he has been a minister without portfolio, minister of justice, deputy prime minister for the political system, internal and external policy.
At the end of 2010, there were rumors that he could succeed Đukanović as prime minister. When the choice fell on Igor Lukšić, Marković said that he was not thinking of becoming prime minister. He denied having anything to do with the "Listing" affair, in which it was claimed that the documents linking Lukšić and Milan Roćen to Duško Šarić were forged.
Marković was elected Prime Minister on November 28, 2016 and held that position until the end of 2020, when the new Government of Zdravko Krivokapić was elected after DPS lost power in the elections in August of that year.
In that period, Montenegro became a member of NATO, opened the last chapter in negotiations with the European Union, the then US Vice President Joe Biden visited Montenegro. However, critics accuse him of stagnating EU integration during his mandate due to the insufficient fight against organized crime and corruption.
Ahead of the adoption of the Law on Freedom of Religion at the end of 2019, it was speculated that he was against it, as well as that he was close to an agreement with the late Amfilohi regarding the law. However, opponents from the pro-Serbian part of the political scene strongly resent him for his statement in August 2020 that after the elections, it will no longer be tolerated that priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church "curse our fathers, our grandfathers, ourselves and our children".
"The law and the legal order will be equally valid for us as well as for Amfilohi and for Backović and for everyone else. And those who curse Montenegro and want to bury it, we will open the borders because they have no foundation here and we will return them to their homes where they came from".
From 2020, Marković was a member of the DPS until the formation of last year's convocation of parliament, and he was not on the party's list in the elections last June.
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