Two and a Half Trenches

The Democratic Party of Socialists, Novak Kilibarda's Popular Party and the Social Democrats decided to join forces with Milo Djukanovic at the upcoming special parliamentary elections in Montenegro. Three of the seven parties which brought victory to Djukanovic the last time round are still in the coalition, while the remaining four count on Djukanovic to win victory and intend to join him after the elections. Their rival is Momir Bulatovic, rallying the Socialist Popular Party, Seselj's radicals, the JUL and a few minor Serbian-made parties. It is quite apparent that Montenegro is once again split by two opposing trenches, one of which will be strongly supported by Slobodan Milosevic.
The Yugoslav president faces another battle for recapturing lost ground and establishing his control of the insubordinate Montenegro. "The Socialist Popular Party (SNP) will definitely win if the elections are fair", SNP vice-president Zoran Zizic told Vreme.  Zizic went on to say that the SNP has decided to run the in election race on its own at the republican level and to form a coalition in some municipalities. He specified that the election results will determine whether the party will form a post-election coalition with someone, adding that last month's public surveys show that the SNP is the strongest party in Montenegro.

The DPS leadership, however, claims that public surveys show the DPS is the strongest party. The party's leadership debated for quite some time whether they should go to the elections on their own or form a coalition. After last October's elections, Djukanovic's voters expected all seven parties that brought the Montenegrin president victory to keep the coalition intact for the coming election race too. Djukanovic himself expected that too. He told the Montenegrin television two months ago that he would be a president to all citizens and that he would therefore support no particular party in the parliamentary elections. He said he would lend support to the reformist bloc and his position resulted in a rather tiny coalition. However, the approach made it possible for Djukanovic to head the coalition at the upcoming elections. The Montenegrin president and other DPS representatives had talks with parties rallying ethnic Albanians and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) rallying Moslems. Rifat Veskovic, the SDA president, believes his party will be represented in parliament and says he would support the reformist bloc. Veskovic went on to say that there would be little or no hope for Montenegro if the reformist bloc lost the elections.

The Liberal Alliance too is looking forward to a post-election coalition with the reformists. "We decided to take part in these elections on our own and we were forced to abandon the coalition by the election law. Montenegro is now a single electoral unit. We are going to run the race on our own and we do want a coalition with Djukanovic's reformists after the elections", the Alliance's spokesman Miroslav Vickovic said.

The liberals' leader, Slavko Perovic, said on several occasions that the DPS had never invited him to join the coalition. The liberals made their decision to run on their own after the elections were called. Their election campaign shows that they've got no favorites between the DPS, the SNP and Kilibarda's Popular Party. One gets the impression that Kilibarda and his followers are trying to be the center in this election race with an obvious calculation that this strategy will win them as many representatives in parliament as possible. It is just as obvious that the strategy is more convenient for Bulatovic's team as neither the SNP nor Bojovic's party are now accusing Perovic of separatism, although anti-separatism is the base of their political platform.

On the other side, the reformists are accusing the liberals of weakening the reformist bloc and even expressed their suspicion that the liberals are prepared to form a post-election coalition with Bulatovic.

The burning issue is whether an open battle between the reformists and the liberals is on the cards. It is quite apparent that this s exactly what Bulatovic's team wants. The liberals too have problems of their own. They are uncertain whether their followers will vote for them or Milo Djukanovic's coalition, which they might do if they assess that Montenegro's fate is safer in the hands of its current president.

The SDP president, Zeljko Rakocevic, told the Vreme weekly that Djukanovic's coalition prompted backward forces in both Serbia and Montenegro to gird together. Rakocevic says the SNP is in fact a front Bulatovic set up to take the ultra nationalists, dogmatic communists and disguised leftists under his wing. "It is certain that the DPS was unable to hold its own everywhere. A coalition rallying all reformist parties would be in Montenegro's best interest, because more than one part is required to bring about genuine reforms. It is a shame that some parties have stepped out of the coalition. If they were all still with us, our election victory would be a foregone conclusion", Rakocevic said.
Novak Kilibarda's party was the most persistent in the demand for forming a large coalition, mainly because it believes that a large democratic coalition would be more efficient in resisting the disastrous policy pursued by the presidential couple from Belgrade's elite residential area of Dedinje.