LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic: Agreements to be implemented, not a step further (RTS/Tanjug/Beta)

Everything that has been agreed as part of the Brussels agreement will be implemented, but we will not go a step further, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said after Tuesday’s round of the Brussels dialogue on normalization of relations with Pristina. After an informal meeting of the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, Dacic told reporters that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic will shed light on all dilemmas with regard to the process of normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Asked to comment on the controversies regarding Chapter 35 of the negotiating process, Dacic said that this is also something that the Prime Minister will elaborate on.

 

Djuric: German amendment is pressure on Serbia (RTS)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric said last night in Brussels that there is a new amendment to the draft platform for the negotiating Chapter 35, whereby conditions for Serbia’s EU integration are additionally deteriorating and pressure exerted for Serbia to be forced to directly or indirectly recognize independence of Kosovo. “Prime Minister Vucic is seriously thinking about the way of how to view the future of the dialogue process, political life in the country, perhaps even the government,” Djuric told RTS. He noted that the proposer of the amendment is Germany, and it is supported by Great Britain and Croatia.

 

Mogherini: Vucic, Mustafa committed to implementing past agreements (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa “repeated their commitment to the implementation of all the past agreements,” according to a release from the office of EU High Representative Federica Mogherini. “The two prime ministers had an open discussion on the state of play in the dialogue, in particular as regards the implementation of the August 25 agreements,” according to the release, a link for which can be found on the Twitter account of Mogherini’s spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic.

 

EU via Kosovo (Blic)
The entire EU integration of Serbia will depend from the resolution of the Kosovo problem. For the time being, the EU does not request formal recognition of Kosovo. This is the basis of the draft document of the EU negotiating platform, into which Blic had exclusive insight. It derives from the draft that the negotiations with the EU, but also any further progress by Serbia, will definitely depend from Chapter 35, which refers to Kosovo and which should be opened first, at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2016. This draft text is subject to change, and one of the possible changes is the amendment submitted by Germany.

Nailing

The EU document, already at the beginning, has one good and one bad item for Serbia. The good – recommendation for opening the important Chapter 35. The bad – if the EU estimates there is no progress in the chapter that regards Kosovo, the other chapters will not be opened. This practically makes everything clear at the very beginning – the EU integration officially depends from Kosovo. The document that Blic had insight into mentions nowhere that Serbia needs to recognize Kosovo. However, it contains items that need to be implemented, which are not easy and not popular for the authorities in Belgrade.

Kosovo stamps

“Serbia needs to encourage municipalities in the north to integrate into the Kosovo system, including the use of stamps and other symbols in accordance with the Kosovo laws,” states the draft of the EU negotiating platform. Apart from the abolishment of the civil defense in northern Kosovo, the EU demands also include for the “Elektromreza Srbije” (Serbian Electric Power Grid/EMS) and the Kosovo Agency to sign an agreement on interconnection, as well as for Serbia to allow the Kosovo agency (local EMS) to join European organizations. “Serbia needs to establish a special company for energy supply in Kosovo (“Elektrosever”) that would operate in accordance with the Kosovo laws, in accordance with the Brussels agreement. Serbia is requested to ‘resolve the issue’ of management in the ‘Gazivode’ hydropower station that was appointed by Belgrade,” states the confidential EU document.

Telecommunications

Serbia needs to enable an area code for Kosovo in the agreed deadline. As Serbia makes steps towards giving an area code for Kosovo, so will its existing mobile operators receive temporary working permits in Kosovo. Telekom Srbija can establish a daughter-company in Kosovo and Metohija that would operate according to the Kosovo laws and would deal with fixed telephony.

Crossings

However, the EU document does not mention either border or state symbols, which had been stated in public over the past days. The document literally states: “Serbia needs to complete the establishment of all crossings and to improve control and/or to close the so-called alternative crossings, which is the agreement from the 2013 Brussels agreement.” The EU goal is unambiguous: to gradually establish a comprehensive normalization of Serbia-Kosovo relations in accordance with the EU strategic framework for negotiations with Serbia. The strategic framework is a document known from February 2014 and it already uses the term “comprehensive normalization”. Belgrade agreed with it as soon as it entered the negotiations with the EU. The terms in the draft “Serbia” and “Kosovo” instead of Belgrade and Pristina are no novelty, but are part of the strategic framework. The draft has “only” gathered all this in one place, but even so – recognition and status of Kosovo, as well as membership in international organizations, such as the UN, are not mentioned anywhere.

 

Nikolic advocates referendum on Kosovo (Novosti)

When Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said that it was time for a “national consensus on how to continue with Pristina”, he had in mind a referendum. He will discuss this topic with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, Novosti was told in Nikolic’s cabinet. Nikolic’s idea on a referendum on Kosovo is opposed to Vucic’s stand who claims that it is not the time for a referendum, behind which he had “never hidden”.

 

Chinese Ambassador: Kosovo to be resolved according to Resolution 1244 (Tanjug)

Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Li Manchang has stated that China’s official position is that the issue of Kosovo and Metohija needs to be resolved based on UN Security Council Resolution 1244. “The Resolution precisely states what Kosovo’s status is and that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia and, in that sense, Serbia has our full support,” said the Chinese Ambassador in Jagodina. Speaking at a press conference, he reminded that China has not recognized Kosovo. Commenting on the Serbia-EU negotiations, the Ambassador said: “We respect Serbia’s choice and the negotiations with the EU, but nobody should pre-set some advantages. This is my opinion.

 

Reactions to Pristina incidents (RTS/Politika)

Radio Belgrade Director Milivoje Mihajlovic told Radio and Television of Serbia that these incidents represent a well-conceived operation to obstruct the formation of the war crimes special court, a maneuver at delaying everything, including the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO).

The Chairperson of the Serbian parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun says it is high time for the EU and US to discipline the leader of the Self-Determination Movement Albin Kurti. He says this is an extremist who is increasingly becoming a destabilizing factor of the political situation in the province. “How can someone oppose the ZSO when its formation was agreed in Brussels in April 2013? Why didn’t they protest then, but now when the so-called Kosovo government is expected to pass a decree on the formation of the ZSO?” asks Drecun.

 

Kosovo – reason or excuse for elections (Politika)

The announcement by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic that the draft plan for opening Chapter 35 on Kosovo could be ground for early elections has been greeted with caution in the ruling coalition. Vucic’s coalition partners, except for Aleksandar Vulin, think that the negotiating platform should be discussed and that elections should be slated only if they must. However, the opposition claims that this is no reason for early elections, but Vucic’s excuse for elections, since “he hasn’t fulfilled any of the promises”. The only thing on which the authorities and opposition agree is that it depends from the Prime Minister whether there will be elections. Serbian Minister for Labor and leader of the Movement of Socialists (PS) Aleksandar Vulin says that Chapter 35 is one of the very important reasons for slating early elections. Vulin adds: “Anyone who thinks that the Prime Minister will accept what he hasn’t given in the negotiations with Pristina is wrong. I am completely sure that the stand of our state will be that we cannot accept to annul the Brussels agreement over one chapter, any chapter. If someone thinks there is a politician in Serbia who can come to power and recognize Kosovo, well, here is a great opportunity to confirm this, but this is also a message to our EU partners and the entire international community. Serbs will decide who will lead them and what policy will lead them, and this is decided at elections.” Deputy leader of the Democratic Party (DS) Gordana Comic opines that the process of normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina is no reason for slating elections. She points out: “If you are incapable of making a real breakthrough in the normalization of relations, it is impermissible to call the people for a referendum on Kosovo or EU integration. This is playing with the state at another level compared to this playing with the state when elections are at stake. The Prime Minister can resign whenever he wishes, but not for whatever he wants. If he wants normalization, he needs to work. They have our support for normalization with Kosovo, concerning ‘Gazivode’, and he ought to appreciate this support, because we see that the situation is different in Kosovo, the opposition there fiercely opposes the Brussels agreement.” Momo Colakovic from the United Pensioners’ Party (PUPS) points out: “Serious work awaits the government, and I hope the parliament will have the opportunity to discuss this. If pressure continues regarding the EU negotiations and the resolution of Kosovo’s UNESCO membership, we would need to discuss this both in the government and parliament, these are new elements. If this would occur, then I would find some elements for having reason to think about elections. If there are no mentioned problems, then there is no need for elections. Our stand is that the leading party and the Prime Minister decide on elections.” Aleksandar Senic from the Social-Democrat Party (SDS) thinks elections are a necessity and explains: “The reason is that the SNS would experience deluge if only local elections would be held. We can be given this or that now as the reason, but the essence is that there must be elections because Vucic forestalled a fiasco of his own party at the local elections. According to the research we have, the SNS stands very poorly in towns, his rating is 30 percent in Nis and Valjevo, and I think that Vucic would not allow himself for his party to win 20 or 26 percent.”

 

Samardzic and Bogdanovic: Chapter 35 no surprise (Danas)

Former ministers for Kosovo and Metohija Slobodan Samardzic and Goran Bogdanovic agree that there are no surprises in the opening and content of the draft text of Chapter 35. “We knew for a long time that the first chapter to be opened will be 35, which is the only one that interests the EU – do you or don’t you recognize independent Kosovo. The government made a commitment in January 2014 in the negotiating framework that it will accept the legal document on recognizing Kosovo. No surprise either for the government or experts,” the leader of the Serbian State-building Movement Slobodan Samardzic tells Danas. “The West is not interested is how Vucic will sell his surrender of Kosovo to the public. Vucic is now testing the ground with early elections, playing on the win-win card. He will say after victory that the people, by voting for his party, also voted for his policy of surrendering Kosovo, whereby they would relieve him of the historical responsibility for betraying national interests,” says Samardzic. Goran Bogdanovic, official of the Social-Democrat Party (SDS), tells Danas that “he warned as early as in 2013, when he voted against the Brussels agreement in the Serbian parliament, of everything that is happening now, including Kosovo’s request for membership in UNESCO and other international organizations”. “The international community and Albanians only want to sign some document with Serbia. It is clear that the negotiations in Brussels are entering a new phase now, because of which the authorities in Belgrade are spinning the public with the story on a “ghastly paper”. We who live in Kosovo and Metohija see both the causes and consequences of the Brussels agreements. I am not against negotiations, but I am not for us accepting all requests of the other side. All these requests were also at the negotiations between 2005 and 2011, but things done by Pristina now are written in the Brussels agreement, which Serbia signed,” says Bogdanovic. According to him, the Serbian Prime Minister will not risk holding a referendum over Kosovo and Metohija, while Vucic’s stories on possible early elections serve for spinning and putting the public to sleep.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Four dead in tragedy in Kakanj coal mine (klix.ba)

In the accident that happened last night in the pit Begici-Bistani in the Kakanj Coal Mine, four miners lost their lives: Muhamed Sarac (47), Nermin Musija (38), Mijo Stojicic (39) and Sejad Gadjun (44). At the time of the accident during the 3^rd shift a total of 28 miners were in the mine. The bodies of the victims were drawn out and transferred to the City Cemetery Visoko. Miners who survived safely went outside of the mine. In the accident, on which Federal mining inspection should declare soon, were injured Haris Musija (43) and Dzemal Ibrahimspahic (35), and they were transferred last night to the Cantonal Hospital Zenica. Representatives of the mine visited the families of victims this morning. Three dead miners, who worked as loaders, had children. One of them was employed in the mine for 11 years.

 

Day of mourning 15 October (Fena)

The government of the FB&H has passed the decision at an urgent, telephone session, on declaring 15 October 2015 the Day of mourning in the Federation, on the occasion of the coal mine tragedy in Kakanj.

 

Sarovic: No discussions with Alliance for Changes on reconstruction of Council of Ministers (Nezavisne)

Deputy Chair of the B&H Council of Minister Mirko Sarovic has stated that, as far as he knows, nobody had conducted talks on the pre-composition of the B&H Council of Ministers with the Alliance for Changes (SzP), which also nominated him for the Council of Ministers. He says he is unaware whether the talks were conducted at some other level. “There is a series of issues we are discussing, we have different opinions. We delay the resolution of some issues, but in general we have correct approach and cooperation without anything that may threaten the work of this institution. We are satisfied with the partners in the Council of Ministers,” said Sarovic.

 

Ivanic not to run for PDP leader? (Patria)

Patria has unofficially learned that the PDP leader Mladen Ivanic will not run for president at the PDP congress that should be held in November. Branislav Borenovic is most often mentioned as his possible successor. PDP was founded in 1999, and Ivanic has been its president for 16 years now.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

EU, US Press Macedonia over Special Prosecution Delay (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 14 October 2015)

After two weeks’ delay, Macedonia’s Prosecutors Council is expected to start reviewing a proposed team of 14 deputy special prosecutors in charge of probing illegal surveillance claims.

The overdue National Prosecutors Council session comes after the European Union delegation to Skopje and the United States embassy urged it on Tuesday to stop delaying and allow the team proposed by recently-appointed Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva to start working as soon as possible. “It is critical that the Council of Public Prosecutors fulfils its role under the law on investigation of intercepted communications and appoints Ms. Janeva’s team, so that her office can begin carrying out its mandate and performing its duties independently and free from any form of political pressure,” the EU delegation and US embassy said in a joint statement. The formation of an independent special prosecution to investigate illegal surveillance cases was agreed in an EU-brokered deal between Macedonia’s warring government and opposition last month in a bid to end the political crisis that has gripped the country. The head of the National Prosecutors Council, Petar Anevski, said on Tuesday that it will decide separately on each of the 14 proposed deputy special prosecutors and that “due to the specifics of the matter”, the session will probably last longer than normal, possibly taking two days. Janeva previously demanded their approval as soon as possible and in one package. Before the approval procedure, the National Prosecutors Council demanded and got a working, financial and personnel plan from Janeva, which it reviewed on Tuesday. The demand was seen by some as yet another excuse to delay the approval of the deputies. Janeva told media this weekend that if all goes well, the first criminal charges against politicians and high officials may be put in place before early general elections in April. However Janeva was also criticised in pro-government media over the weekend after her proposed financial plan was published. She was criticised for asking for too much money, some one million euro by the end of the year, because the regular prosecution functions far more cheaply. Her plan envisages 124 employees in the special prosecution, including some 30 security staff. But the head of Transparency International - Macedonia, Slagjana Taseva, said that the government and the regular prosecutors have no right to complain about the expenditure. “This institution should have a solid budget so that it can do its job properly. Even Janeva’s wage should have been considerably higher than that of the [chief] public prosecutor,” Taseva said. Macedonia's feuding parties clinched a deal on a new Law on the Special Prosecution and on appointing Janeva on September 15 in EU-brokered talks. According to the agreement, the finance ministry has until next Monday, October 19, to provide the money for the Special Prosecution. The Justice Ministry should also provide work space by Monday. Macedonia’s political crisis centres on tapes of illegal wiretappings released earlier this year by the opposition pointing to serious wrongdoings by senior officials, including Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has held power since 2006. Among other things, Gruevski is accused of soliciting millions of euros and of the fraudulent acquisition of land for construction. Gruevski has dismissed the claims made against him, accusing the opposition of conspiring with “foreign secret services” to topple him.

 

Bosnian Serb Leader Fishes for Funds in Moscow (BIRN, by Srecko Latal, 14 October 2015)

Hard-pressed by a looming liquidity crisis, the leader of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska has gone to Russia to seek a loan to deal with a growing budget deficit.

Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik is attending an international investment forum in Moscow to renew negotiations about a Russian commercial loan intended to address his entity's growing budget deficit and avoid a liquidity crisis, a senior Bosnian Serb official told BIRN on Wednesday. Some of the top financial institutions and companies from Russia and the rest of Europe are participating in the ‘Russia Calling’ forum organised by one of the leading Russian investment banks, VTB Capital, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin was the keynote speaker at its opening. The Republika Srpska leadership has previously tried to negotiate a commercial loan with one of the Russian state-owned banks - reportedly in the amount of $500-700 million - but these plans were eventually abandoned. Pressed by their own economic problems caused by Western sanctions, Russian officials refused to provide easy terms for the loan and asked for commercial interest rates, as well as guarantees in the form of shares in some public companies, Bosnian Serb officials told BIRN. Republika Srpska economy minister Zoran Tegeltija told media earlier this year that the Russian loan was not an option any more and that the government was looking for alternative sources of funds, including the privatisation of the government-owned Banka Srpske. But a senior Bosnian Serb official told BIRN on Wednesday that the worsening economic and social situation in the entity has forced Dodik to try one more time to get the loan, even under stringent conditions. On the margins of the forum in Moscow, Dodik has already met Vasily Titov, the first deputy president and chairman of the VTB Bank management board, Dodik's office said in a press statement on Tuesday. Local experts and international officials have in the past expressed serious concerns that this kind of loan from Russia would not only make the economic situation in Republika Srpska more difficult because its government is in no position to pay commercial interest rates, but would also significantly increase Russia’s financial and political influence on the Bosnian Serb leadership. Administrations all across Bosnia and Herzegovina are facing growing budget deficits because budget support from the International Monetary Fund has been blocked for a year over Bosnian leaders' failure to implement agreed reforms. Without outside funding, the state and the two entities, as well as many cantons and municipalities, will not be able to pay salaries, pensions, social benefits and other bills in the last quarter of this year, officials have warned.

 

Montenegro Opposition Splits Over Parliament Boycott (BIRN, by Dusica Tomovic, 14 October 2015)

A proposal to walk out of parliament in protest at alleged electoral fraud, put forward by the main opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, was rejected by Montenegro's other opposition parties.

Opposition parties failed to agree on whether they should jointly start a boycott of parliament on Wednesday, after their proposed electoral reform amendments aimed at ensuring free and fair polls were not adopted. The plan to boycott parliament over alleged electoral fraud and the allegedly poor state of democracy in the country was proposed by the strongest opposition alliance, the Democratic Front, but other opposition parties decided not to back the move. The Democratic Front on Monday urged the rest of the opposition to unite to put pressure on the government and form a transitional administration. Before announcing the boycott, the Front launched 24-hour protests in Podgorica on September 27, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and the holding of what it said should be Montenegro’s first ever free and fair elections. One of its leaders, Andrija Mandic, said a boycott was essential. "Any opposition MP who shows up at the parliament session is not opposition," he said. Parliament is supposed to discuss the formation of a joint committee for monitoring the implementation of the country’s new electoral law, which the majority of the opposition sharply criticised because they claimed that it would not provide for a fair vote in elections which are planned for spring 2016. The Democratic Front has refused to participate in the work of the committee because parliament in July did not adopted its amendments for deleting voters who do not live in Montenegro from the electoral roll. On the agenda of the autumn session of parliament is also a proposal for granting the status of an independent municipality to the town of Tuzi, which has a majority Albanian population. The opposition DEMOS party, led by former Montenegrin diplomat Miodrag Lekic, said on Tuesday said it would make its own decision whether to continue working in parliament or not. DEMOS said it would not take part in any activities in which the "governing majority's voting machines" undermine democratic practices in parliament. "On the other hand, we will participate where it comes to protecting the interests of citizens," the party said in a statement. The opposition Positive party said it would not support the idea of a boycott, while several independent MPs announced that will attend meetings of some parliamentary bodies on Wednesday which are to debate a set of economic measures. The Democratic front also walked out of parliament for three months in February 2014 after the the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists voted against six EU-backed election laws aimed at curbing abuses in the electoral process. The laws mainly addressed suspected irregularities in voter lists and abuses in the use of budgetary funds for party purposes during elections.

 

Crowd-funding a revolution in Montenegro (opendemocracy.net, by Fedja Pavlovic 13 October 2015)

Montenegro is witnessing the biggest protests in its history in calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Djukanovic, and activists are turning to crowdfunding to sustain their revolution.

As I write these lines from an overcrowded, ad hoc assembled press HQ facing the Parliament of Montenegro in Podgorica, I shudder to think of what success our risky and implausible endeavor will yield. On 27 September, thousands of Montenegrin citizens, led by the main opposition group (the Democratic Front), gathered in front of their parliament to demand an end to the 26 year rule of Milo Djukanovic’s regime. The resignation of Djukanovic’s government would be followed, it was hoped, by the formation of a transitional, national unity government, whose mandate would be limited to organising the first free and fair elections in the country’s history.

Since then, the protesters have put up tents on a boulevard which has become known as ‘liberated territory’; across the barricades, a thousand policemen in full armor stand guard outside an empty parliament building, on top of which snipers are dispersed. Last Sunday, the Ministry of Interior attempted to disband the assembled crowd, but the protests’ leaders refused to leave the occupied ground until their demands were met. Anti-Government rallies have also taken place in three other cities – the organisers’ plan is to spread this wave of popular revolt to every municipality in which Djukanovic’s party holds power, thus making the movement nation-wide. Meanwhile, from our press tent, I have been involved in running an international crowdfunding campaign to support the Montenegrin protests. Without the funds, the logistics or the manpower to mount a credible challenge to Djukanovic, the protests’ organisers have been forced to think outside of the box. Indeed, the prospect of the protests being the first political event of their kind to be sustained by small individual donations (‘citizen-driven and citizen-funded’, as they point out) is as out-of-the-box as it gets. As partial as I am to this fundraising novelty it appears as though, even at this early stage of development, the protests have brought to the fore a far more pertinent point – one that may contribute to the understanding of the role of elections in authoritarian regimes. This point becomes clear once the protesters’ fundamental goal is considered. Although the grievances against Djukanovic’s rule – a quarter-century period marked by theft, corruption and the proliferation of organised crime – form a powerful rallying cry, regime change is posited not as an end in itself, but as the inevitable sine qua non for achieving free and fair elections. Thus construed, the protesters’ goal reveals an underlying premise about elections in Montenegro: namely, that winning elections by rigging the vote is not some nuisance that Djukanovic has to put up with every now and then – it is the source of his regime’s legitimacy.

Before the tents

The decision of the Montenegrin opposition to take their struggle to the streets has been mulled over since 2013. In April that year, the presidential candidate around whom the opposition rallied had narrowly lost to Djukanovic’s aide, in what was called ‘the largest instance of election fraud to date’. This election was held in the wake of a Watergate-like scandal that shook the nation: leaked audio tapes of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists’ committee sessions, held in 2012, showed the leadership (including Djukanovic himself) hammering out strategies of buying votes for the upcoming electoral cycle. “By getting jobs for our people, we’re raising our numbers, and lowering theirs. We get one person hired – we get four votes for DPS [Democratic Party of Socialists],” the former Chief of the State Employment Agency was caught saying on tape, “Putting money into these [partisan] hiring practices is not a waste, but an investment”.

The hiring scheme described by the abovementioned official runs as follows: the party operatives pull strings to get people hired in the public sector (which the regime controls) or in large private companies (which have strong crony ties to the regime). The new employees and their families are henceforth blackmailed into voting for Djukanovic’s party, and the fate of their career depends on the number of people they manage to tout and recruit. Keeping one’s job requires mere compliance; any thought of promotion, let alone to a managerial post, demands a surplus of partisan zeal. The country’s labour market is thoroughly pervaded by this scheme – with the possible exception of high-level nepotism, free competition has transformed into a competitive vote-fetching contest. This, however, is just one of the many techniques of electoral fraud developed and perfected by Djukanovic’s regime over the decades. Another one is the so-called ‘safe vote’ database – a massive collection of private information about every single registered voter in Montenegro. A small fraction of these spreadsheets were seized by opposition activists from one of the DPS’s local headquarters: its rows and columns contained data on voters’ family relations, sexual preferences, criminal records, treatable illnesses and anything else that could be used to coerce and extort. This Orwellian monstrosity is meticulously updated by the party’s army of operatives, almost all of whom have strong ties to the National Security Agency, whose activity is structured around city districts. “Every district is led by the district’s chief, under whose supervision are 20 field leaders, each commanding a group of 10 to 15 field workers”, revealed an anonymous whistleblower in 2013. With the help of the 'safe vote' database, Djukanovic’s party members are able to accurately target opposition-leaning voters, offer bribes (sometimes as small as a sack of flour), favours (e.g. covering unpaid electricity bills) or money in exchange for ID documents (required at the polls in order to cast a vote). On Election Day, the party’s field workers are dispatched near polling sites, conducting a head count of those who turned out and making note of those missing. All line Ministries, Governmental Agencies and State-run Funds are harnessed to this electoral end. They have been firmly subjugated to serve Djukanovic's vote rigging goals, behaving more like campaign headquarters and less like institutions of governance. For instance, the State Labour Fund had spent €4.3 million on severance packages during the election year (2014) - a 300% increase from the year before. As tapes from the ruling party’s committee meetings showed, this money was disbursed exclusively to the party’s members. “We’re expecting a lot from the State Labour Fund”, the Minister of Sustainable Development was heard pondering; “It’s also important that we channel the Fund’s severance money directly towards our membership”, one city Major retorted. Another such telling example is the State Police which has been reduced over time to Djukanovic's private Praetorian Guard: wiretapping opposition figures, silencing dissidents and mediating between the regime’s political and criminal vertices. In 2013, an ex-member of the State’s Antiterrorist Unit publicly spoke about the activities of the so-called ‘black troikas’, three-member units, allegedly assembled and overseen by Montenegro’s Chief of Police himself, with the mission of battering prominent journalists and anti-regime activists. This loss of institutional autonomy has been gradual and the process was led with a steady hand. One by one, echelons of the State nomenclature were overtaken by party apparatchiks whose only true competence was whipping votes. At first, only the top-level decision-making positions were hijacked in this manner; with time, however, this became the case with mid-level posts as well. Today, the top-down route has reached its end, as the lines of hiring ‘by the Party and for the Party’ extend to over-the-counter, reception-desk and janitorial jobs. Each gig, no matter how small or underpaid, entails a commensurate service to the party during election seasons. In this domain, a perverse kind of free competition emerges – one where public administrators are judged by their merits, but wherein partisan efficiency is the sole criteria of adjudication.

'Smoke and mirrors'

In the 26 years of Djukanovic’s hold on power in Montenegro, few things have been constant. An ally of Slobodan Milosevic and notorious warmonger in the early 1990s, Djukanovic switched sides in 1996, eventually becoming a full-fledged advocate for Montenegro’s EU accession and NATO membership. Once a communist firebrand, Djukanovic came to embrace neoliberalism, privatising the bulk of the country’s industry during the 2000s. A staunch defender of the Yugoslav union throughout the 1990s, Djukanovic had a change of heart around 2004, trading militant Serbian nationalism, on whose wave he’d once ridden, for a l'etat c'est moi version of the Montenegrin sovereignist sentiment. Throughout this time, Djukanovic’s politics has been smoke and mirrors to service the unrelenting appetites of a tight-knit, kin-based group of kleptocrats. In the 1990s, while Montenegro (then a part of Yugoslavia) was suffering the effects of severe war sanctions, Djukanovic’s government decided to replenish its exchequer by sponsoring an international cigarette smuggling ring, on top of which was Djukanovic himself. Soon, it became evident that a much larger-than-intended share of the spoils went to private pockets. In 2004, Djukanovic was charged with collaborating in organised criminal activity by the Italian judiciary and Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation issued an international warrant for his arrest. Since Montenegro was still a constituent republic of the State Union with Serbia, the Court ruled that Djukanovic did not possess the sort of immunity wielded by leaders of sovereign States. From that point on, Djukanovic became the most ardent promoter of Montenegro’s independence – a cause that, two years later, would grant him the needed international immunity of a full-fledged Head of Government. During the 2000s, Djukanovic managed the privatisation of Montenegro’s state-owned industry. In this process, large-scale theft was more than a mere side occurrence. In fact, to say that the whole business was a government-facilitated land grab, in which Djukanovic’s inner circle took hold of, exsanguinated and eventually bankrupted large chunks of the economy, would not be an unfair summary of what happened. Between 1998-2014 Montenegro’s industry, whose worth in 1998 was estimated to be $4.5 billion, was sold out for a total of €735 million. Out of the 198 state-owned firms privatised in this period, 176 have gone bankrupt. Some 100,000 workers (approximately one fourth of the country’s workforce) have lost their jobs. Whole conglomerates were sold to phantom firms, each with a few hundred dollars worth of liquid assets at a Cayman Islands bank and, invariably, ownership links to one of Djukanovic’s cronies. In the process, the inner circle (comprised, among others, of Djukanovic’s brother and sister, personal friends, top political aides and mafia bosses) grew astoundingly rich – a poll ranked Djukanovic the 20th richest world leader in 2010. Some of that wealth may have come from bribes, in addition to theft. In 2011, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged the Hungarian telecommunications firm Magyar Telecom with giving $6 million in bribes to Djukanovic’s sister in a bid to buy Montenegro’s largest telephone operating company. They settled: the accused party paying $95 million in criminal penalties, disgorgement and prejudgment interest. If these few contours of Montenegro’s political and economic predicament may lend themselves to an immediately pertinent conclusion, it would be that the ongoing anti-regime protests – as unlikely as their success appears – are the only shot that the country has at breaking from Djukanovic’s grip.

A façade democracy

Montenegro is a prime example of a ‘façade democracy’, to use one of the many neologisms coined in recent discourse on democratic transition. Its institutions of governance serve as a façade of order and lawfulness, veiling a corrupt, authoritarian kleptocracy. Objectively, this all-pervasive criminality makes the institutions ungovernable and the government’s basic tasks (e.g. collecting tax revenue from its cronies’ firms) unmanageable. Djukanovic’s success lies in the fact that he has compensated the capacity to govern with the ability to win elections. This latter ability is not important merely because it suppresses any notion of democratic accountability – it serves a legitimising function as well. Staged elections are the keystone of the fraudulent construction which Djukanovic has systematically erected over the years. Just as free and fair elections serve to validate the rule of governments in genuinely democratic societies, Montenegro’s faux elections legitimise, in an analogous way, the façade by which Djukanovic conceals his true colors. This is precisely why the ongoing protests may well be a defining moment in the country’s recent political history. The people camping in front of their parliament – joined, for the thirteenth night in a row by their MPs – are sending a powerful debunking message. Their insistence on organising free and fair elections is the most unequivocal rejection that Djukanovic’s democratic façade has suffered to date. As such, it is the first step towards meaningful democratic transition in Montenegro.

 

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