Candidate for mayor of Podgorica Luka Rakcevic, assessed that the list he leads, "Jakov Milatović - For a better Podgorica", will be by far the strongest in the upcoming elections in the capital, and that the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) will achieve a "never worse" result.
In an interview with "Vijesti" via email, he said that his list does not allow anyone to scare them with DPS, least of all, as he stated, those who have not spoken a single word against that party in the last 30 years, while was in power.
"DPS won in 2020 in the parliamentary elections with a list led Dritan Abazović, then in 2022 in the capital with the lists we led Jakov Milatovic and I, and then in 2023 they finished him off with the great victory of Milatović in the presidential elections, when he was politically outclassed Milo Đukanović... Precisely because of all this, we do not allow anyone to scare us with the DPS anymore... We defeated the DPS and sent it to the margins of political life, and that will be confirmed on September 29...", he said. Rakčević.
Speaking about the list he leads, he said that the results of the public opinion survey confirm the synergy created by the association of people who are well known in Podgorica and who have proven credibility and political weight over the years.
"... The strong result of our list is important because it is the only guarantee that the new city administration will be formed around the clear and solid foundations that we will lay, which must be much better than everything we had in the previous period", he added. .
The list "Jakov Milatović - For a better Podgorica" is made up of the Movement for Podgorica, which is close to the head of state, the Civic Movement URA and the Movement for Changes.
Why did you accept to be the first on the list "Jakov Milatović - For a better Podgorica"?
As you know, I have been dealing with the problems of Podgorica and the fight for the city's interests every day for 12 years. Of those, I spent 10 in the role of the most active opposition councilor, when the DPS was at the peak of its power, and when I opposed the concreting and devastation of Block V, Njegošev Park, Barracks "Morača", Gorica and other parts of the city with the citizens. which we have successfully protected.
After that, I was given the privilege to serve the interests of my city for the last two years - from the position of deputy mayor, which I used in the best possible way, pushing the often dysfunctional coalition government (which consisted of as many as 13 parties), in order to launch numerous projects and build a better Podgorica.
In that process, many good results were achieved that I am proud of, but with which I am not satisfied. We built over 120.000 square meters of new park and green areas, and reconstructed over 150.000 square meters of facades, which made our city safer, greener and more beautiful. We doubled the record funds for culture and doubled the record funds for sports, saved ŽRK, and stabilized FK Budućnost. We built or reconstructed over 60 kilometers of roads, but also prepared the ground for never more intensive capital investments, some of which have already started, and the rest will start construction in the coming months. Such as the construction of a multi-functional facility (health center, retirement and youth center, etc.) in Zagorič, the reconstruction of Jusovača and Podgoričanka, the construction of the eastern stands of the stadium, the western ring road and Vojislavljević boulevard, the completion of Veljko Vlahović boulevard, Božana Vučinić square, the promenade along Morača and Ljubović, as well as numerous others.
They are exactly the people on our list, like the great finance secretary Balše Spadier and others, the most responsible for almost all of the above-mentioned results, which further motivated me to accept the invitation and the honor shown to lead the list of such great people. Even if I didn't know so much about the capital city, with such a team of great individuals, who love this city, any job would be easy. And precisely because of this, I have no doubt that our city administration, right after the elections, will be remembered as the most productive and the best in the period after the introduction of multi-party system.
What result do you expect in the elections? With whom would you possibly form a post-election coalition?
According to public opinion polls that I have seen, I believe that we will be by far the strongest list in the upcoming elections. The results of the research only confirm the synergy created by the association of people who are recognized in our city and who have proven credibility and political weight over the years.
I would especially emphasize the important role of the President of Montenegro, Jakov Milatović, whose strong support is the continuation of our story that we started after the victory in October 2022, and which was broad, honest and responsible from the very beginning.
In this sense, the strong result of our list is important because it is the only guarantee that the new city administration will be formed around clear and solid foundations that we will lay, which must be much better than everything we had in the previous period. The local administration must deal with the problems of the citizens, not the interests of the parties, it must be fast, efficient and reliable, so this will be our key condition for the formation of the future government.
Does your statement that you don't want anyone to scare you with DPS mean that the list you lead does not exclude the possibility of post-election cooperation with that party?
We won DPS in 2020 in the parliamentary elections with a list led by Dritan Abazović, then in 2022 in the capital with lists led by Jakov Milatović and I, and then in 2023 we finished it off with Milatović's great victory in the presidential elections, when he politically outclassed Milo Đukanović. During that time, some of our political competitors sat in the dark meetings of DPS, forging a strategy for the best possible result of that party and doing everything to prevent the changes that were inevitable. We do not blame them, everyone has the right to make a mistake, but we do not believe for a second in their sudden amnesia, nor in the stories for small children that they were at such meetings "by accident".
Precisely because of all this, we do not allow anyone to scare us with the DPS, least of all those who have not spoken a word against the DPS for the last 30 years, as long as it was in power. We defeated the DPS and sent it to the margins of political life, and this will be confirmed on September 29, with the party's worst result ever in the Podgorica elections.
After the election, if you are in a position, will you negotiate with the government as a "Za bolju Podgorica" list or will GP URA separate from it?
Our story and cooperation is natural, positive and long-term, so after the elections, from the position of the winner, we will talk together about the formation of a new government. However, it is easy to anticipate that our result in the capital will also mean accelerating changes and stopping the circus at the state level, because this coalition is the only one that can put an end to populism, nationalism and crime.
What, in your opinion, are the main problems in the capital?
While others know nothing about this city and hide their programs like a snake's legs, we are the only ones who have presented our basic "Vision of a better Podgorica", which all citizens can see at www.zaboljupodgoricu.me. It includes development (infrastructure) components, as well as numerous social and cultural policies, as well as concrete measures from the green agenda, the implementation of which will begin immediately after the elections.
Only in the first 100 days, we will introduce free public transport for all our pensioners, but also buy 50 new buses, in order to complete public transport, introduce more lines (with less waiting time) and solve traffic jams. We will provide every pregnant woman in our city with a basket of homemade products on a weekly basis, and for all children up to the 3rd grade of primary school - we will subsidize out-of-school extended stay by as much as 50 percent.
We will start the construction of the eastern tribune of the stadium (with a public garage of 466 parking spaces) and Božana Vučinić square (with 349 parking spaces), in order to solve the problem of parking in the center and complete the stadium in the year in which our Club celebrates its century of existence.
Likewise, every child in primary schools will receive one healthy meal (financed by the City), and we will complete the construction of bul. Veljko Vlahović and the City Theater, open a new cinema in KIC "Budo Tomović" and start the reconstruction of Jusovača. We will start the construction of the promenade along Morača and Ljubović, and enter the final design phase, before the construction of the promenade along Ribnica.
This is our public promise, which we will achieve in just 100 days of power.
Parallel to that, we will prepare a project to build seven more underground garages (for a total of nine) throughout the city, in order to solve the issue of parking, but also to free the trapped public areas on the above-ground part, which we will use for numerous cultural and sports events. We will get involved in the construction of the missing kindergartens, primary schools and health centers, even though this is not our competence, because Podgorica does not have time to wait for slow and out-of-date ministries, which do not move the process from a standstill. We will continue the reforestation of the hills around Podgorica (Male Gorica, Mali brdo and Dajbabska Gora), but also start the construction of a bioenergy plant at the Landfill and a solar power plant at the Zelenil nurseries, in order to produce a large amount of electricity and reduce the huge costs the City has on this basis.
We will establish a large business zone on Ćemovsko polje, which will be a generator of never-greater investments and the creation of thousands of jobs, and the interest in such a project is already huge.
We will continue the mural painting project (which we just started), as well as build a new daycare center for children with developmental disabilities.
Within our "Vision of a better Podgorica" there are many more projects, and all of them are the result of our daily commitment and preparation of project documentation over the past two years, so that today, with this degree of certainty, we could promise such an ambitious plan and ask citizens to they hold us to our word.
Citizens know that I have never been inclined to promise unrealistic things, on the contrary. But I responsibly claim that the next city administration will be remembered as the most productive and the best in the recent history of our city. And it will be an honor for me to contribute to such a development era of Podgorica.
The capital city should be allowed to manage its space
How do you plan to solve the urban mess in the capital?
For a year and a half, through public appearances and written correspondence, I have been asking the relevant Ministry and the Government to adopt a legal solution, which has been in the parliamentary procedure all this time, and which returns spatial planning competences to the Capital City.
For years I have been warning that the current law is unenforceable, and that the Ministry and the Government do not have the capacity to pass planning documents, especially not with the speed and efficiency that is necessary for the Capital City. That is why we do not have a spatial urban plan (SUP) for Podgorica as of 2018, and a large number of large detailed urban plans (Tološi 2, Sadine, Donja Gorica, Momišići A and others) have been pending for years.
These are huge financial and spatial potentials that are "locked" to us, because the current Government does not want to allow the Capital City to manage its own space.
For this reason, the first step is the adoption of a ready legal solution, the second - the establishment of a city public company that will deal with the preparation of planning documents, and the third - the determination of priorities and the urgent preparation of planning acts, in order to preserve the remaining space where the plans are bad, and free up the spatial capacities where there are no plans - like the huge Sadin.
You will remember the kind of fight we fought with the DPS (when it was at the peak of its power) for the preservation of the "Morača" Barracks and all those protests we organized so that 150 thousand square meters of concrete would not be built on eight hectares of beautiful space along Morača. That is why, in that area, we will soon have a museum of contemporary art, a museum of natural history, a house of architecture and other public facilities.
Just when we thought that such situations were a thing of the past, we witnessed the bad intentions of the outgoing Government, that through the adoption of a freak law on state property, it steals public property and sells it to privileged tycoons, which we also managed to prevent, through determined activities in the State Assembly.
Moreover, you remember that it was this Government that, through amendments to the Local Self-Government Financing Act, took as many as seven million euros from Podgorica - money that was later used to finance, instead of building new parks and kindergartens in Podgorica, as many as seven vice-presidential posts in the Government and more fictitious ministries in order to satisfy the partisan appetites of the parties in the Government.
Such things must become a thing of the past once and for all, and we will seal it with a great victory in the upcoming elections.
It is unacceptable that some settlements in the 21st century do not have water
If you become part of the local government, how do you intend to solve problems such as waste disposal and lack of water in certain parts of the city?
When we are part of the government and take the biggest responsibility for managing the city, solving the water supply problem will be at the top of the priority list. Soon, we will connect the upper part of Lješanska nahija to the new Kaluđerovo oko water source, while we will supply water to all the surrounding villages from the highway water supply system. There are still several critical points - in Kuči, on Kakaricka gora and other parts of the city, and I consider it unacceptable that certain settlements (only a few kilometers from the center) do not have water in the 21st century.
When it comes to waste collection, a year ago we encountered a difficult situation in the city's Čistoca, which at that time had only seven functional trucks and a dozen spare containers in stock. After we invested over two million euros in the modernization of machinery, today they have as many as 24 functional trucks and several working machines, as well as hundreds of spare vessels/containers, and we will continue this process even more intensively in the coming months. The presence of so many vehicles will be immediately felt in all parts of the city, and soon we will install video surveillance at all locations, as well as sensors for waste disposal, so that we can notice possible blockages faster and easier from the control room.
In addition to the necessary raising of awareness in the part of proper waste disposal, which is a perennial problem of our city, an important segment is also large supermarkets, which fill our containers with cardboard packaging, so we are in the process of acquiring press-containers for the disposal of cardboard, in order to protect our containers from such waste, but also more easily recycled valuable cardboard and earned significant money.
All in all, we will make our City much cleaner, greener and safer. And that is only one segment of our vision of a better Podgorica.
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