Prime Minister Milojko Spajic and officials of his Europe Now Movement (PES) barely take responsibility for a single oversight by the government and the ruling majority, or rather the system of which they are a part, claiming that the opposition is to blame for these mistakes, often, despite "common sense", accusing it of its own obvious oversights.
The last such case happened the night before last, when a PES MP Vasilije Carapić accused the opposition of "alarming the public" with the story of a diesel price increase, even though it was announced less than 12 hours earlier by none other than the Ministry of Energy and Mining. Čarapić's message came after the government, however, prevented the fuel price increase.
Čarapić didn't stop pointing fingers at others, so he called out Oskara Weakness and said he hoped that not many people "ran to fill up on gas" after the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) MP's announcement of price increases.
"Because they paid more for fuel today (the day before yesterday) than they would have paid for it tomorrow or any other day of the week," wrote the PES parliamentarian on the "Iks" website.
The same sentiment was echoed by Čarapić's party comrade and Deputy Speaker of the Parliament. Boris Pejović, who said that the opposition and activists close to them tried to cause panic, "probably counting on them to politically profit from the crisis that is affecting the entire world."
Both messages were "shared" by the head of the executive branch and the PES on his "Iks" account, going a step further: to a post by a user of that network that the prime minister "got" 70 cents because, after the announcement of the price increase, he filled up on fuel, Spajić responded by saying that he (that "Iks" user) was indebted to the opposition MPs who "panicked" him.
The Prime Minister, however, admitted yesterday that the Government, "hand on heart", could have coordinated the whole story better.
"It is important that we prevented sudden inflationary pressures in time," he said.
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However, the executive branch's moves had consequences: some citizens were driven to gas stations, and at some of them, late the night before last, according to unofficial information from the newspaper, it was not possible to fill up with fuel for several hours due to the implementation of the decision to correct excise taxes.
Radulović: Unpredictable government
Journalist at the Podgorica weekly "Monitor" Zoran Radulović He told "Vijesti" that the first postulate of democracy states that the government, in a political sense, is responsible for everything that happens in society - both for the rise in fuel prices and for the behavior of the opposition.
Bearing this in mind, he says, the current government - both executive and legislative - in practically the fourth year of its mandate is not aware that it "does not know how to govern."
"They have good moves, they have bad ones, most of the moves are neither white nor black, but they continuously prove something that is one of the biggest flaws of every government - unpredictability. I can be satisfied with the government's policy, I can be dissatisfied, but what every interested citizen - even a foreigner who has any kind of job in Montenegro - must have is predictability," Radulović says.
He reminds us that an official act, i.e. a statement from the energy department, announced a fuel price increase the day before yesterday, that because of this some people decided to fill up their tanks in order to save some money, that the day before yesterday the government that announced the price increase said that fuel would become cheaper, and that the Prime Minister referred the "martyrs who were waiting in line" to the opposition.
"No matter how interested we follow the work of this Government, we cannot understand the logic of its decision-making. It is fundamentally unpredictable. Which means that it is bad at a fundamental level, because we cannot plan our lives even three months in advance. Every plan is like this - from urban planning to fuel prices...", claims Radulović.
When asked whether he is offended by statements like Čarapić's, and who can "get through" such messages, the interviewee replies that Montenegrin politicians can no longer offend him, but that they can worry him, and that a way of communicating like that of the PES MP cannot get through, but that it can last.
"What was the basic role of all governments after 2020 - to heal this society, restore trust in institutions, restore personal responsibility as one of the basic characteristics of politics - they have not done it, and no matter what bad things they do, they say: 'So what, DPS was better for you?'" Radulović points out.
Asked whether that mantra has expired, six years after the change of government, Radulović says that he doesn't know.
"In Montenegro, the worse the government, the longer it lasts. That's one of the postulates, so I'm not sure that (the deadline) has expired, and I wish it had," the interviewee stated.
What is the opposition to blame for?
PES did not respond to the editorial team's question about why its officials do not take responsibility for a single bad (or failed) move, but instead continuously point the finger at the opposition.
And there have been more examples of shifting responsibility onto others and a lack of self-reflection in the past year.
Thus, in early June, Spajić accused the opposition of "denying" the state 4,6 million euros from the EU Growth Plan by refusing to support the amendments to the Constitution, even though the ruling majority - despite the fact that the deadline for these changes was clear - had been doing nothing for months, at least officially, to secure two-thirds support for the amendments to the highest legal act in time. It was only a few votes short of that. In the end, the two parties entered the procedure for amending the Constitution about fifteen days ago, after an agreement "sponsored" by the EU Delegation to Montenegro.
One example of PES's evasion of responsibility is Čarapić's reaction at the end of January to the news that the police were searching for Miloš Medenica, who (at the time) escaped from house arrest after he and his mother, the former head of the Montenegrin judiciary, Vesna Medenica, sentenced to ten years in prison.
On that occasion, Čarapić stated that Medenica's escape was foreseeable after the rejection of the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code, proposed by PES, which would have introduced the possibility of extending the maximum detention for another two years (from three to five years) for the most serious criminal offenses punishable by long-term imprisonment. The PES MP again saw the responsibility for the fact that these amendments did not "pass" in the opposition, but also in part of the majority, which, as he said, "brutally cut down" the proposal with the support and appeals of the civil sector. There was no mention of the (in)work of the security services at that time.
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Spajić's party "defended itself" in a similar way at the end of November last year, when a lawyer was not elected as a judge of the Constitutional Court. Mirjana Vučinić, who was nominated for the position by the head of state Jakov Milatovic. In the second round of voting, she received 45 votes, four fewer than she needed to be elected. Although she was supported by part of the PES, several members of parliament from that party abstained, while some did not participate in the vote. “Vijesti” sources from part of the parliamentary majority claimed at the time that PES, or rather the majority of its representatives, had withheld support from Vučinić after the then-second candidate for judge (Mirjana Radovic) did not get a “pass”.
Well, PES MP Darko Dragović He said at the time that the main culprits for Vučinić not getting the "green light" were the president and the opposition, "because they did not respect their mutual agreement." Although it is true that some of the DPS deputies who left the assembly hall before the vote (some gave their support) would have enabled her election if they had been in the plenum, it is also clear that if PES really wanted it, Vučinić would have been a judge.
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Stanić: Raise your arrogance to the highest level
European Union official Mirko Stanić announced yesterday that the publication in which Spajić claims that the opposition announced an increase in fuel prices, even though it was done by the Ministry of Energy and Mining, shows how "disheartened the government is."
"A whole day of pressure and announcements should have made the government realize that they cannot increase fuel prices every week and that citizens and the economy can no longer tolerate this. Instead of apologizing to the Montenegrin public for this behavior, they blame the opposition for everything, not their own inaction, arrogance and incompetence...", Stanić said.
He stated that the government will soon defend this kind of condescending attitude towards its fellow citizens and "this kind of arrogance that they have raised to the highest possible level" in the elections.
"And proof of how effective the announced increase was is the lines that were at Montenegrin gas stations all day...", he concluded.
Note: In the first version of the text, it was mistakenly stated that PES MP Vasilije Čarapić did not see the parliamentary majority as responsible for the fact that the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code did not “pass” - he did, however, recognize responsibility in part of it. We apologize for the error to readers and to Mr. Čarapić.
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