The Race Begins

Montenegro’s parliament Speaker, Svetozar Marovic, called presidential elections for October 5. Election affairs began on July 23, and the republican election commission is set to receive nominations up to September 15. For now, the only known candidate is Milo Djukanovic for the ruling DPS, but there’s a lot of interest in who else will register, especially in Momir Bulatovic. All the moreso since there are more dilemmas about him; will he stand as an independent or the candidate of some new party, and whether the elections will mark the end of the crisis in Montenegro. The scheduling of those elections practically means that Bulatovic’s five year term as president is being cut short by three months. The DPS leaders believe it’s more effective to go for a shortened mandate than to dismiss Bulatovic, which would be a slow and difficult job. They also believe the elections will resolve the crisis, since Bulatovic is on one side and all the other state bodies on the other. Some even expect Bulatovic to give up.

Perhaps he’s aware of the danger of defeat and has started his election campaign at tribunals held in Podgorica’s Konik and Golubovci suburbs and in Kolasin. He’s also announced that he’ll cover the rest of Montenegro. Bulatovic is obviously asking the people to re-elect him and begging for help to save Montenegro from the alleged danger of anti-Yugoslavs, separatists and criminals. He also initiated the holding of a referendum on political and state issues, even though that can’t be held within the ruling party and can only be called by the parliament among the population. Regardless of all that, polls are being conducted daily with signatures collected at a price of one DEM. What those mounds of paper will be used for in the end is not clear.

Only the Serbian state press is siding with Bulatovic and he’s moaning every day that the Montenegrin state media, which he controlled until recently, should be more open. Bulatovic is optimistic that the people will decided justly and democratically, but his associates are disappointed by the turnout for his tribunals. At Konik the crowd numbered 200, in Kolasin about 500 and in Golubovci 600.

The question is whether those gatherings will move people to stage broader and bigger protests or will they only serve Bulatovic as an excuse to form a new party. He registered the DPS in Belgrade under his own name with the help of federal Justice Minister Zoran Knezevic, but that doesn’t mean a thing in terms of elections in Montenegro since only parties registered in Podgorica can stand in those elections. Bulatovic can appear with a new party registered in Podgorica to nominate him legally, or he can stand as an independent candidate which is doubtful considering that he said he won’t stand in the presidential elections without a party behind him.

It’s too early to say what the opposition will do. Bulatovic agrees with part of the opposition that early parliamentary elections should be called. The question now is whether that initiative will appear in parliament, will the opposition uphold it, or will Bulatovic try to dissolve parliament, which would be very difficult since the conditions for that aren’t in place.

The new DPS leadership headed by Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic is counting on smooth sailing where everything will be resolved once Milo Djukanovic is elected republican president. That is the only state institution held by Bulatovic, and winning it would mean release from the policies they’ve been fighting against for the past four months.

Official Belgrade has turned over its media to Bulatovic but we’ll have to wait and see if it will interfere in the presidential elections in Montenegro. Djukanovic hasn’t changed his stands on Milosevic. He even told a republican parliament session debating a resolution to reject the SPS initiative to elect Milosevic that he hopes federal parliament will stop the new FRY president from breaking the constitution. Wait and see if Milosevic is going to forgive him, accept the reality in Montenegro and abandon Bulatovic, or whether he will do everything to submit the republic to himself.