The early parliamentary elections in Montenegro, scheduled to take place on 11 June 2023, will be the twelfth parliamentary elections since the introduction of a multi-party system and the sixth since Montenegro gained itsindependence. However, forming a stable and effective government could be a challenge.
There are around 542 thousand eligible voters registered in the central electoral roll. Montenegro has a proportional electoral system in which the entire country constitutes one electoral unit. At the elections a total of 81 representatives will be elected to the Montenegro’s Parliament. The election threshold is 3%.
Of the fifteen lists presented for the 11 June elections, only half should be able to pass the threshold to enter parliament. Electoral polls favor the PES, led by Milojko Spajić, who aims to win a third of the votes, followed by the Zajedno coalition gathered around the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS).
The DPS dominated the Montenegrin political scene for over thirty years, until the general elections of August 2020, from which Đukanović’s party came out severely defeated, giving way to the emergence of a new political reality, further consolidated with the débâcle by Đukanović in the last presidential elections.
In third place according to the polls, should be the coalition formed by the Democrats of Aleksa Bečić and the URA movement of the current premier Dritan Abazović, followed by the alliance of pro-Serb parties Za budućnost Crne Gore (For the future of Montenegro, ZBCG) , led by Milan Knežević.
For the first time parliamentary elections in Montenegro are taking place without ethnic tensions, inflammatory rhetoric, raising of the issue of the Serb Orthodox Church. Identity issues and ethnic issues are no longer in the center of the campaign. However, the early elections are likely to yield a range of support in parliament, including both pro-Montenegrin and pro-Serb blocs.
The upcoming parliamentary elections do not have the status of “crucial” elections, because the regime of Milo Đukanović and the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) has been defeated, as well as Đukanović personally at the recent presidential elections.
According to opinion polls, the newly formed “Europe Now” movement, centrist blocs and national minorities could lead the new government. An opposition bloc led by the Democratic Party of Socialists could resume its downward trend, confirmed by Djukanovic’s defeat in presidential elections on April 3 this year.
The most probable hypothesis is that of a coalition government made up of the PES, the Democratic-URA alliance and some national minority parties.
Opinion polls suggest that after the upcoming parliamentary elections the political forces that have so far dominated the scene, namely the DPS and the For the Future of Montenegro coalition, initially gathered around the pro-RussiaDemocratic Front (DF) – one of the victorious parties from the policies of 2020 – could end up in opposition.
Political programs are still not fully focused on the citizens, but predominantly remain at the level of populism and declarative promises of achievement of a better standard of living and bigger economic opportunities. In the past 30 years, the DPS and its satellite coalition partners had an opportunity to implement what they are currently making promises about, but did not.
The campaigns are dominated by the promises of political parties about future increases in salaries, pensions, social welfare support, subsidies for procurement of apartments and cars, allowances. However, the political parties are making such promises without specifying from which sources do they plan to fund all these additional expenditures or how they plan to realize their promises.
The election campaigns are centered on the leaders, who are in the focus and adorned with populist messages.
Amid Montenegro is a multiethnic country, the current government is a unicum, because it was established by minority communities. It is headed by Prime Minister Dritan Abazović, President of the URA Civic Movement, which advocates a civic, European and environment-friendly Montenegro. Dritan Abazović (URA) together with his Coalition partner Aleksa Bečić (Montenegrin Democrats) concluded the agreement with the youth, who need to be provided a better and more certain future. They also undertook to offer to the youth opportunities to take responsibility for leadership of the country.
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The independent participation of the Bosniak Party (BS) led by Ervin Ibrahimović at the elections is encouraging, so that the Bosniaks can stop being the largest collateral damage of the independence of Montenegro and the DPS. An unavoidable question is whether at the upcoming elections Ibrahimović will be a herald of Bosniak political renaissance?
The fight against crime and corruption is in the focus of the current government. The political parties that prove themselves in the fight against (organized) crime and corruption, decriminalization of the police and the judiciary and work in the interest of justice will win support at the parliamentary elections.
The current Montenegrin Government has initiated activities and measures to return the Bar Port under the sovereignty of the state of Montenegro, because in a plethora of international reports the Bar Port has been detected and treated as a location through which different forms of international crime are committed. The most optimum option would be to have the state of Montenegro become a 100% owner of the Bar Port, instead of the fragmentized ownership which includes some very shady co-owners, who are affiliated with crime and corruption and whose property is of dubious origin.
During Đukanović’s rule Montenegro became a hotbed of regional and international crime. The roots of crime in Montenegro go back to the period of wars in the region and international sanctions. At the time unbreakable connections were established between political and mafia-criminal structures.
Montenegro must not be a victim of radical Montenegrin nationalism and Orthodox clericalism. Montenegro can progress only if the politicians on the Montenegrin political scene are acceptable also for other ethnic community, and not just for the community from which they originate.
Đukanović’s decision to leave, at least formally, the leadership of the DPS and his defeat in the presidential elections have further weakened the former president’s party. This trend had an impact on the DF, whose political work has always remained focused on the fight against the Đukanović regime”. This party has very little to offer to voters, having focused his electoral campaign mainly on the issue of Kosovo. Even the most fervent Serbian nationalists are aware that Montenegro cannot in any way influence the situation in Kosovo.
However, Đukanović for decades has played an important political and institutional role as a symbol of a “stabilocracy”, and as a political figure that the West has always seen as a guarantor of security. Thus the Western partners will look for a new local political actor who enjoys popular legitimacy and who is willing to take an unequivocally pro-Western position.
