The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), after three decades, is formally not in power in Montenegro as of yesterday.
Citizen activists and journalists assess that the biggest legacy of the three-decade rule of Milo Đukanović's party is a divided society, on all grounds.
As a legacy, the former government leaves us with increased corruption, privatized state resources, and an economically and socially stratified country.
The foreign policy course is generally considered positive.
We asked Monitor journalist Milena Perović and civil activist Stefan Đukić what are the pluses and minuses of the three-decade rule of the DPS in the field of politics, economy, education and culture.
What is the key positive and negative characteristic of the three-decade-old DPS government in the field of internal and external politics?
"The key negative thing in the field of internal politics, which was marked by the three-decade DPS rule, is the fact that an autocratic and clientelistic system was created in which only their own people could swim, and all the others were enemies. This deepened the gap, both in the social the level between the rich and the poor, as well as the division concerning identity issues, on which the DPS consolidated its power. As for the positive things, they can be placed in the field of foreign policy and concern the country's foreign policy course since the departure from Milošević in 97. , through integration and the path to the EU and joining NATO," Perović pointed out.
"What remains as a legacy of the 30-year rule of the DPS is a people at odds on fraternal, national, political, religious and every other basis, and that is something that will not be able to be resolved by one government, one policy, but something that will take a long time to last and from which we will be treated for a long time.As for the good things, it is very difficult to point out what it is and in fact it speaks volumes about this former government for what it was that the best thing we can say about them is that they did not fall under some dictatorial instincts and tried with all their might to defend the government and contest these elections," Đukić said.
What is the key positive and negative characteristic of the three-decade DPS government in the field of economics?
"A handful of privileged and close ones privatized and took over social resources through non-transparent and bad privatizations, which resulted in poverty and poor economic recovery, and the departure of dozens of people from the country who tried to work elsewhere. I must also mention that terrible corruption is something that has characterized three decades of rule, which again influenced the stratification of poverty and the collapse of the economy. What is good is again connected with that foreign policy course, and in this sense some reforms took place that can be welcomed, for example from the introduction of the mark, the euro, to reform of the tax system," said Perović.
"As far as the economy is concerned, this year we saw what is the worst thing in our economic policy, that is the attachment to one economic branch - tourism, which was destroyed this year by the coronavirus pandemic, and we know that if this did not happen, something else would have happened which, like a domino effect, would spoil the whole system further. So the great lesson is that you cannot base the economy on one unburnt branch, and this is something that must be changed in the future. If we talk about the small things of the economy, it is very difficult to see. There are some progressive measures that are at the level of principles, such as a small profit tax, but which have not been used as an economic opportunity so far," said Đukić.
What is the key positive and negative characteristic of the three-decade DPS government in the field of education and culture?
"Schools were ruled by party soldiers, universities, there was a lack of autonomy, freedom... A private university was formed, which was again in the hands of people close to Đukanović, and which influenced the additional collapse of the state university, which found itself at the bottom of the scale on which it is measured the quality of education. What is good is again the product of the foreign policy course and the fact that the country opened up, thereby enabling international cooperation, people still had the opportunity to improve their skills elsewhere. In the field of culture, the story is the same again, and it is privatized, the privileged took money to mainly talk about identity issues," said Perović.
"The good thing is modern teaching and how it is conceived, and some beginnings of the school reform that we can stop with. That's how we come to bad things, the bad thing is that everything that exists on paper does not exist in practice. Let's say for education, we don't have the possibility that we have modern teaching if we have a class of 40 students, if we have old schools, if we do not have good textbooks, if we do not have motivated teachers, to teach and do their best, they have no authority because they are institutionally unprotected, insufficiently supported with money and everything else. it's also a matter of cultural workers," said Đukić.
Bonus video:
