Political crisis in Montenegro: Who, with whom, against whom

In the first week of February, the Parliament of Montenegro will decide on three initiatives over the course of two days: the dismissal of the Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazović and the appointment of Minister Milojko Spajić in his place, then on the Proposal for a decision on shortening the mandate of the Parliament and finally on the Proposal for a vote of no confidence in the Government Zdravka Krivokapića. The first two initiatives were launched by the Government, while the proposal for a vote of no confidence was submitted by 31 MPs, mostly from the opposition and MPs from Abazović's URA.

The rhythm with which the initiatives were catching up with each other is on the border of political coziness, and according to some announcements, the initiative to remove the president of the parliament could join it. In that case, the circle would be closed and the political intolerance that dominated the local political scene would be revealed to the end.

Thus, the parliamentary majority, which elected the current Government, which it often contested more than the opposition itself, will finally turn out to be a very loose, politically heterogeneous, unnatural coalition whose members are more different from each other than they are declaratively from Đukanović's DPS - the "enemy" who he gathered them into a "bunch". That fact alone supports the thesis that a system built for three decades cannot be won only in elections. Electoral will is just the beginning, and the winners, obviously, can prove to be weaker than the system itself.

And indeed, if we put aside cohabitation as a political fact, it is almost impossible to answer the question - who is in power in Montenegro? The government acts as a completely independent body from the Assembly that elected it, and the majority, more precisely the political entities that supported it the so-called expert government, they act as if they are still in the opposition. With mutual accusations, they turned political life into a hard-to-bear cacophony in which political jargon is constantly on the border of extreme primitivism, burdened with concepts betrays the manifestations of which are the destruction of the electoral will or cooperation with the former regime.

This is how a political paradigm was established, which has been making the political environment of Montenegro dysfunctional and almost completely blocked for months. And political narratives, dominated by notions of political corruption, have been seen so many times that they slowly lose all meaning.

Although all three initiatives look quite dramatic and portend radical cuts that will completely separate unnatural Montenegrin political ties, past experience suggests that the scenario "the mountain shook..." could be repeated.

Namely, if Abazović really has support in the opposition for the overthrow of Krivokapić's government, then it is clear even to a mathematical illiterate that the first initiative to replace him will not pass in the Assembly. More precisely, without the URA, Krivokapić with Bečić's Democrats and the Democratic Front - which, by the way, permanently challenged him - does not have the majority to replace his vice president.

The second initiative, the acceptance of which would mean the shortening of the mandate of the Assembly and extraordinary parliamentary elections, probably in May of this year, would have a significant chance of not coming from the Government whose president has repeatedly expressed his intolerance towards the MPs from the floor of the Assembly and finally refused to replace the three ministers who Parliament expressed no confidence. By possibly accepting this initiative, the deputies would recognize their own political inferiority against the prime minister, whom they also called a "political spider". It would be said that political vanity is stronger than the proposal to dissolve the Assembly.

The initiative to replace the Government has the best chance of success for now. First of all, due to the fact that Abazović and his MPs form the tip of the scales that leans to one side or the other, making different political subjects the parliamentary majority. And it could really happen that together with the DPS and the minority parties, they will overthrow Krivokapić. The end result is a rather uncertain path to the concept of a "minority government" or, as in the previous case, snap elections as the end result.

Namely, the fact that the current opposition will support the overthrow of the Government does not mean that they will support the concept of a "minority government". Finally, why would DPS, for example, support Abazović's proposal to form a government that will continue to see them as the main culprits for the spread of crime and corruption in the country. It is likely that the URA will become aware of this fact by February.

After February, is it possible that the current status quo will continue in Montenegro? That would come as no surprise. Although all parties claim that they are not afraid of elections, few of them honestly see them as the best option for getting out of the crisis. The Prime Minister's announcement that he will form a Christian Democratic party suggests that he may be the only one who cannot lose anything in the elections. Quite natural for a party that will go to the polls for the first time.

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