Taking Apart the State

Recently, the Federal Premier announced once again the reconstruction of the federal government, except that this time he designated September as the deadline for this.  Momir Bulatovic has been speaking about reconstruction ever since he became Premier, and several deadlines have already passed.

Regardless of how he ultimately reconstructs it, if at all, it is certain that this will not affect relations between Serbia and Montenegro, nor discontinue the paralysis in the operation of the federal state.

So far, Bulatovic’s permanent reconstructions have boiled down to expulsions from the federal government of Montenegrin ministers, vice-ministers, assistants and bureaucrats who are close to Milo Djukanovic’s ruling Democratic Party of Socialist.  The next move, which he has been announcing from the very beginning, will be to bring people from the Serbian Radical Party and the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) into the federal government, which at the present moment only contains members of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Yugoslav Left (JUL), and Bulatovic’s People’s Socialist Party (SNP).  As Predrag Bulatovic, vice-president of Bulatovic’s Party, recently explained, “SNP believes that all parties which support the strengthening of the federation are welcome to this government.”

What could be the political consequence of bringing the Radicals and SPO into the federal government, given that Montenegro will still continue to not accept any government which is headed by Momir Bulatovic?

LEFT-RIGHT UNIFICATION: Miodrag Vukovic, Advisor to the President of Montenegro, stated for VREME that such a reconstruction will be mainly a detriment to Momir Bulatovic’s People’s Socialist Party.  And as far as the idea of Yugoslavia is concerned, which will be upheld by the new federal government, it is quite easy to predict that it will support a unitary state, because the concepts of the powerful SRS and JUL converge on this point.  Vukovic points out that in the Declaration on Yugoslavia, adopted at this summer’s JUL Congress, there was no mention of the constitutional principle of equality between republics, but only mention of equality of citizens.  “In a state which they are dreaming about and actually constructing, Montenegro would be as equal as members from Montenegro are equal in the Head Council of JUL.  Of the 250 members of that Council, only ten are from Montenegro,” states Vukovic.  On the other hand, the Radicals, from their inception, have supported the idea of an all-Serb unitary state with one leader, one parliament, one government.  Recently, Djukanovic’s Advisor has been pointing out that the Leader of the Radicals, Vojislav Seselj, proposed that the People’s Assembly in Federal Parliament be elected through direct voting, which means that it would no longer be a federal assembly in Parliament, but that both assemblies of Parliament would be subject to sole Serbian representation.  For its part, Milosevic’s SPS strove to create a unitary state for starters with the as yet unrealized proposal for the President of FRY to be chosen in direct elections, which automatically means that Montenegro does not stand a chance — given the difference in the number of citizens in each republic — of getting a president who suits its needs.  All in all, the present power base in Serbia will be strengthened in the Federal Parliament, without any inclusion of the acting government of Montenegro.

SILENCE TO CONDITIONS: Leaders of SRS and SPO, just like Bulatovic’s People’s Socialist Party, believe that in the reconstructed federal government, the number of ministerial posts allotted to each party should be determined by the illegitimate strength of those parties in the Federal Parliament.  Even if, in accordance with such an idea, Bulatovic offers a seat or two to the Coalition “For a Better Life”, which won the parliamentary elections in Montenegro in May, that offer will not be accepted.

Namely, for the Montenegrin government, reconstruction of the federal government means something quite different: that they get the position of the Federal Premier and the opportunity to form the federal government.  They base this right on the constitutional principle that when the president of the entire state comes from Serbia, then the Premier must come from Montenegro, and since the Coalition “For a Better Life” won the elections in that republic, it has the right to nominate the Federal Premier.

At the moment it does not appear that the President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is ready to accept something of that sort.  When this summer the President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, sent him his four conditions for the federal government to begin functioning (verification of the mandate of the new Montenegrin delegation in the Assembly of the Republics and the calling of an early federal elections for the People’s Assembly in Federal Parliament; election of a new federal government in which DPS would nominate its premier, and in which the ministerial posts would be divided equally between Serbia and Montenegro; the return of all federal jurisdictions to federal institutions, above all to the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal State Prosecutor who are presently expanding more energy on politics than on law), Milosevic listened to him without any comment.  As far as is known, up to today he has still not said anything, but that is why SPS Spokesman Ivica Dacic has: “There is no initiative or justification for replacing he Federal Premier Momir Bulatovic,” he stated.  Dacic is also one of the few who gave a positive assessment to the first 100 days of operation of the new federal government, for, in his words, “it managed to ensure economic and social stability in FR Yugoslavia.”

To the question of whether he sees any possibility for resolving the conflict between the two federal units on the question of the federal government, Miodrag Vukovic says that “it is discouraging what is happening from one day to the next.”  First of all, the mandates of the twenty-member delegation from Montenegro in the Assembly of the Republics in the Yugoslav Parliament have still not been verified, even though that ought to be a purely technical matter because the parliaments of the republics independently elect their MP’s to that Assembly.  Srdja Bozovic, who was the President of the Assembly before the elections in Montenegro, still continues to hold this job — as if the elections never took place.  “Montenegro has taken Bozovic’s mandate away from him, while several days ago he led a delegation of the FRY Parliament to Moscow to the session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly where he gave a speech.  As whose representative did he go to Moscow?” asks Vukovic, adding that he only learns from the newspapers about the operations of Federal Parliament, but that as far as he can see, of the entire parliament “only Ljubisa Ristic, President of the Foreign Policy Council, and Srdja Bozovic appear to be doing anything.”  Repeating the position that the federal government does not exist, and that the Federal Parliament is not operative, and that the entire constitutional system has been suspended, Vukovic states that “Montenegro has been blocked out from the federal system, because there is literally no one from Montenegro who legitimately represents this Republic in the institutions of state.”

COURT BURLESQUE: As an example, Vukovic also cites the Federal Constitution Court, which should soon decide whether the decision by the Parliament of Montenegro to appoint only MP’s from the ruling coalition to the Assembly of the Republics is in accordance with the Federal Constitution.  “There where it stated it has no authority, in Serbia the Federal Constitutional Court gives itself the right to decide about Montenegro,” Djukanovic’s Adviser explains, adding that the President of FRY recently nominated (and the illegitimate Federal Parliament adopted his proposal) a judge from Montenegro to the Federal Constitutional Court without consulting the President of Montenegro, even though such a consultation is constitutionally obligatory.  According to Vukovic, in the Federal Constitutional court presently only one judge (Nikola Vujanovic) of the total number of seven gives his opinion based on the law, and not according to directives issued by Slobodan Milosevic.

Otherwise, Momir Bulatovic and his associates constantly keep mentioning that upcoming decision by the Federal Constitutional Court on the legality of the new Montenegrin delegation in the Assembly of the Republics, stating that authorities in that Republic will have to honor it because otherwise it will completely lay bare its separatist intentions.  They already know the future decision by the Court: “I think that the position of Momir Bulatovic’s Federal Government will be strengthened even more with the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on declaring the Montenegrin Law on Election of MP’s to the Assembly of the Republics unconstitutional,” stated Predrag Bulatovic recently.  Momir Bulatovic announced once again that the decision by the Federal Constitutional Court will permit the “political reality” in Montenegro to be represented in the Assembly of the Republics.

The problem is in the following: if all the MP’s in the Montenegrin delegation are Djukanovic’s people, they will vote the same on questions which are important to the status of Montenegro within the federation.  Since in the Assembly of the Republics — which exists precisely to ensure equality of the republics within the federation — the delegations from Serbia and Montenegro are equal in number, this means that Serbia will not be able to outvote Montenegro and that decisions which are not in the interest of the given republic will not be passed.  Thus, it is clear that the government of Montenegro will not accept any decision by the Federal Constitutional Court which would obligate it to include Bulatovic’s people in its delegation, regardless of how much criticism it might have to bare for being separatists.

DEPARTURE OF MONTENEGRO: The distancing of Montenegro from FRY has been, in any case, apparent at every step in recent months.  They adopted a decision that the government of Montenegro only communicates with the federal government on the level of bureaucrats.  “Only once the federal government is constituted according to the Constitution of FR Yugoslavia will we be ready for full cooperation,” stated the Vice-president of the government of Montenegro, Novak Kilibarda.  Unhappy with import quotas which they received from the federal government, and especially with the prohibition on import of common goods from Slovenia (damage estimated at 4.5 million dollars), they took foreign trade into their own hands.  Vojin Djukanovic, Minister in the government of Montenegro, assessed that the decision by the government of Montenegro to manage import quotas independently is “quite a normal move”.  Since the federal government did not make a transfer payment of 416 million dinars for their pensioners, Montenegrins have stopped making any payments into the federal budget.  When the National Bank of Yugoslavia ordered them to increase their obligatory foreign currency deposits for getting so-called greater authorization, they refused with the explanation that all banks in Montenegro respected the previous, similar order, while only ten percent of Serbian banks did the same.  Montenegrin authorities stated that they will not feel bound by any decision regarding Prevlaka which might be brought by the federal government.  Stories about their own currency are once again being mentioned.  There is mention of calling a referendum on the legal and state status of Montenegro, that is to say, on whether Montenegro should stay in Yugoslavia or not.  Thus the President of the Social-Democratic Party of Montenegro, Zarko Rakcevic, stated at the end of August that it is necessary to reassess relations within the “modern Yugoslav federation” in order to establish whether it represents an optimal state model for both republics.  Rakcevic stated that opinion polls conducted in Montenegro, regardless of whether those questioned stated their opinions as Montenegrins or Serbs, or as Muslims, Albanians or Croats, indicate that nearly 40 percent of citizens “prefer either an independent or a confederate Montenegro, that is to say a confederate state.”

In the meantime, Predrag Bulatovic is stating that his party “is getting ready for taking over power in Montenegro.”  He told the Vijesti daily of Podgorica that the Government “will not be able to last for long” in Montenegro because “there is no connection between election promises and the ever worsening standard of living in Montenegro.”  “That is why our party is getting ready for consolidation and the taking over of power in Montenegro in the near future,” stated Predrag Bulatovic.

Perhaps the Bulatovics and their political master are bracing for such a move, but Milo Djukanovic is announcing something quite different: “Yugoslavia will fall apart not because of Montenegrin separatism, but because of the political and economic decay which took hold of it sometime ago, precisely because of the rule by one man, because of a non-functioning political system and because of the economic and social ruin we are living through,” stated the President of Montenegro recently for Vijesti.
Judging by all accounts, the coming months will not be uneventful — both sides are announcing “a hot political Autumn.”