The upcoming presidential elections will determine the future Montenegrin political scene, and if the current head of state, Milo Đukanović, runs, he will probably lose in a long round, if he has a decent opponent, says methodologist Miloš Bešić in an interview with Television Vijesti.
Bešić believes that the anti-DPS structures will go with several candidates, and he also estimates that the Europe Movement should now have its own.
He in meeting the March presidential elections, he sees two things as indicative. The first is the way of announcing elections.
"Behind it stands the explicit intention of the current structure in power, and the President of the Assembly belongs to that structure, to maintain this Government as long as possible, that is obvious. And instead of going to the presidential and parliamentary elections together, which would really be, according to every possible and democratic, institutional, political, European or any other standard, a normal thing, that will not happen, and that is bad".
Another thing, he adds, is the importance of electing the president, regardless of his constitutional powers.
"That these are the elections of all future elections and that these are the elections that will determine the Montenegrin political scene, quite certain, for the next ten, 12, maybe 15 and more years. The reason is very simple. Regardless of the constitutional powers, the president is the one who elected directly, by the votes of citizens and has a large amount of authority. Simply, whoever wins that presidential election, the political structure or force that the future elected representative will represent, that political force will have a high level of authority and a large influence on the upcoming parliamentary elections and simply all political the outcomes will largely depend on that election," Bešić said.
One of the key unknowns at the moment is whether the current president and leader of the DPS, Milo Đukanović, will run again.
"Even if Mr. Đukanović runs, if there are even decent candidates on the other side, my opinion is that there will not be one candidate but several, it is very unlikely that Mr. Đukanović will win in the second election round. At least what the data shows now from the research, he simply doesn't have room in the second round to shift that 50 percent, which is important, it could happen in some completely unreasonable scenario where the turnout would be terribly low, which I personally don't believe in. So if is running, he will probably lose, which leads me to believe that if there was any rationality left in the DPS, they will look for another candidate, and then the whole game will be very open and very interesting, and that is, to be honest, the best possible scenario that can happen in these presidential elections. So, if some alternative DPS candidate were to run and if we had some new candidates from the current government structures or the anti-DPS majority, then we would have an interesting and, to me, uncertain election game."
Asked if Milica Pejanović Đurišić, who is again being speculated as a potential candidate, could be a solution for DPS, he answered:
"I think yes. I think that Mrs. Pejanović Đurišić was a good candidate last time as well and, if you remember, she was known almost until the last day of the GO DPS session as the most serious candidate for the presidency in the previous presidential elections, and they are there for her. I'm going to put it colloquially, I'm sorry, we were tricked and literally cheated and probably she's a little angry about that. She's been out of the DPS party life for a very long time, she has integrity, she has capacity, she has experience, she has an excellent reputation in the international community, which is very important, she has the capacity to be voted for by non-DPS voters as well. I really don't know if she is the best candidate of DPS, probably there are other options, but it is quite certain that she is, in my opinion, a candidate that should be considered seriously consider"
Bešić does not see the position of the DF that they will have their own presidential candidate as final, but rather as testing the ground, which will last at most another two weeks. He also assesses that it is not easy to accept the candidacy of anti-DPS structures, whose members are in strained and bad relations.
"It seems to me that in that constellation a joint candidate is very unlikely to happen, and if that joint candidate happens, it will be a victim of such large trades and consequently very negative trades, so I don't know if such a thing is even good for party and for potential candidates. Lekić was once a candidate, quite successful, today Mr. Lekić does not have the capacity he once had".
Bešić is also convinced that in the upcoming elections the Movement Europe must now have its own presidential candidate.
"They simply have to have their candidate and they simply should not think about coalitions at this moment. The first reason is that they showed their capacity in the local elections, especially in Podgorica, the second reason is that when you go to some elections for the first time and make a good result, then you continue with the same strategy, you don't drown in wider coalitions".
Finally, but crucially important, Bešić is not an optimist when it comes to unblocking the Constitutional Court.
"No, I don't believe it. Because for that to happen, there must be some kind of agreement between the DPS and the other parties. I really don't see any room for that to happen. Which means that when it comes to making a final decision after the presidential elections, similar to Podgorica, we have a disaster in store".
The Constitutional Court has been blocked since September last year, which is why, among other things, there has been no transfer of power in Podgorica and Pljevlja even after almost three months since the elections.
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