Mirjana Markovic versus Djukanovic

The citizens of Podgorica and Herceg-Novi are once again closing ranks around two angry, and, or so it seems, irreconcilable camps, bent on walking away with a victory in the aforementioned municipalities on June 11th, when local elections have been scheduled. On the one side is the ruling coalition made up of the Democratic Party of Socialists, The Social-Democratic Party and the National Party, and on the other the Socialist National Party, Serbian National Party, Serbian Radical Party and Yugoslav United Left. The Liberal Alliance will try, using its own forces and criticizing both camps, to recoup as many of the votes as possible which they were deprived of two years ago by the ruling coalition, while the Democratic Union of Albanians and the Democratic Alliance will run independently for Podgorica delegate mandates.

The ruling coalition For a Better Life - Milo Djukanovic is standing with the openly disclosed ambition to achieve an even greater victory in these elections and evade the necessity of having to form a post-election coalition with the Liberal Alliance, as it was forced to do two years ago. Anyway, the reason which lead to early local elections was the act of the Liberal Alliance in Podgorica and Herceg-Novi which unilaterally severed the aforementioned coalition.

All analysts mark the new standoff as a test whose result will most definitely reflect not only on the future of Montenegro but on the future of the joint state as well.

On the other side is the new coalition - Yugoslavia - SNP, SRS, SNS, JUL - Momir Bulatovic, which has been loudly announcing its upcoming victory, followed by an accelerated process of calling for early republic elections, i.e. the collapse of, as they say the "anti-national Montenegrin government". The Socialist National Party on its own is a fair enough rival for DPS, and many were surprised by the decision to form the already mentioned coalition with the radicals and JUL above all, which, at the previous elections in Podgorica and Herceg-Novi, won slightly more than 1000 votes. Of those, JUL had around 50 in Podgorica, and 36 in Herceg-Novi. Even amongst the SNP ranks, a dilemma appeared as to whether the Yugoslavia coalition will amass more votes than if their members ran individually. Dissatisfaction was evident in some of the party ranks which cannot seem to comprehend a partnership with neither Seselj nor Mirjana Markovic, and dissensions occurred even in the party pinnacle. It came to a point where even a partition was mentioned yet at the end, at least according to the statements of the top SNP officials, it seemed as though there was no dispute, i.e. as though all misunderstandings were resolved by the contents of the coalition agreement in which, allegedly, the radical and JUL members cannot count on delegate mandates in case the coalition gets less votes than at the previous elections. In that sense, the Serbian National Party has a better standing than the radicals or JUL, and there was no resistance to a partnership with it, especially since they are old comrades in arms, dating back from the times of the bloody demonstrations in Podgorica in January 1998.

The imminency of the local elections has postponed what has already been announced, although without a clear time limit, a resolution of the relations in the Federation, even calling up a referendum on the legal status of the state of Montenegro, and it is now clear that a return to those themes awaits us only after the results of the local elections have been announced.  It is also clear that the international community which is keenly monitoring all that is occurring in Montenegro warns that official Podgorica should think about the referendum after the local elections, as well as on whether Montenegro should take part in the federal elections advertised by Belgrade, which is all together raising tensions anew.

The election campaign with no mercy is in process. The Socialist National Party promises that in Podgorica and Herceg-Novi "Yugoslavia, the union of equal republics, shall be successfully defended and it will signify the end of Montenegro's puppet regime". Predrag Bulatovic, SNP's vice president who was regarded as one of those opposed to the coalition with the radicals and JUL, explains that all pro-Yugoslav parties are thus united, regardless of their program differences. During the campaign those differences have been frozen which wasn´t apparent in the public appearance of the federal minister Nebojsa Velickovic, who, on the Serbian Radical Party platform in Podgorica, spoke of defending the Serbian state and the Serbian people only. The director of JUL´s  directorate, Zoran Babic is convinced that JUL will strengthen the coalition which emerges as an answer to the coalition of "secessionist national parties, minority nations and separatist Montenegrin parties helped, paid and logistically backed by the foreign centers of power,".

The federal minister and SNS president Zelidrag Nikcevic says that he has no intention of apologizing on account of the ideological diversity of the parties in front of those who are tearing our country apart and who have, for the past three years, been banning the Serbian language and the Serbian church from Montenegro.

It is difficult to shrug off the impression that the Yugoslav Army in Montenegro is not neutral in the commenced campaign. At a few rallies held during the visit of the head of the general staff of the Yugoslav Army Nebojsa Pavkovic in Montenegro, poisonous arrows were shot at the Montenegrin government and Montenegrin police, both sore points in the eyes of the army and the new coalition.

The current ruling coalition is already calling Bulatovic's new coalition the Mirjana Markovic Bloc, assessing that the forces of chaos and  madness which simply won't give up on the idea of total destruction of a state and its people, have united. An openness towards the world, reforms, democracy and comprehensive development are an announcement of what lies ahead for Montenegro, with a finalization of projects which Montenegro will soon receive credits for. Montenegro in a new alliance with Serbia or otherwise as the people decide, with an observation that no one other than the people of Montenegro can decide on the legal status of its state, is the answer to the accusations of being the cause of Yugoslavia's break-up and separatism.

In any case, a huge battle is being waged and the only question is how it shall be resolved. Not only as far as the actual election results are concerned, since all thus-far held polls put the ruling coalition  in the lead, but rather that the question remains how  Bulatovic's coalition, which claims that it shall carry the victory if the elections are honest, will react to that result. Is that a preparation for potential unrest, already witnessed in the past?