Background
Extraordinary
local elections were held on 11 June in two Montenegrin municipalities
– the small coastal town of Herceg Novi and the republic’s capital,
Podgorica – following the withdrawal by the Liberal Alliance from the
coalitions running their councils. (At the republican level the Liberals
continue to be part of the government led by President Milo Djukanovic’s
Party of Democratic Socialists or DPS.)
With
one-third of Montenegro’s entire electorate between them, interest in
their outcome both inside and outside the country was high, as presenting
the first real test of Djukanovic’s and the DPS’s popularity since parliamentary
elections two years earlier. In that time, their studiously pro-Western
and anti-Belgrade policies had meant that Montenegro stayed more-or-less
neutral during the war in Kosovo (with Djukanovic always referring to
Nato’s "intervention" rather than "aggression")
and had even resulted in the introduction of the German mark as the
republic’s parallel currency.
Earlier
hints, however, that Montenegro’s new rulers would go the whole hog
and hold a referendum on complete independence have been toned down
– not least because the EU and US, despite strong diplomatic and financial
support for Djukanovic, appear to have decided that they have enough
to deal with right now patching up not only Kosovo but also Bosnia-Hercegovina
and Albania (all three of which in fact border Montenegro).
But
the other restraining factor has been the surprising degree of resilience
shown by the Socialist People’s Party (SNP) of federal Yugoslav prime
minister Momir Bulatovic. Though both patronized and demonized by the
Western as well as very nearly all the Montenegrin media (one Reuters
report on a pre-election Bulatovic rally referred to an audience consisting
of "families and pensioners, rural people, unhappy with the present,
nostalgic for the past and scared of the future"), supporters of
the SNP are clearly still active and numerous enough for the result
of any such referendum to be a far from foregone conclusion.
Campaign
As
in the 1998 parliamentary elections, the only posters on view round
Podgorica were for the "For a Better Life – Milo Djukanovic"
coalition comprising the DPS. Glossy and ubiquitous, rather than featuring
faces of the party’s leadership, these tended to show ordinary citizens
going about their business against backdrops of the city being lavishly
rebuilt.
Though
the last couple of years have clearly brought some improvements to Podgorica,
most notably a new bridge funded by the EU (ironically right over the
SNP’s headquarters), the main theme of the DPS’s campaign – that they
have put the country firmly on the path to prosperity – is unlikely
to have been credible with most voters. Salaries and pensions may be
higher than in Serbia (again mostly thanks to direct payments from the
international community), but so too as a result of the latter’s economic
blockade are prices. Factories which once produced for the immeasurably
larger Serbian market are now virtually dormant, while the only obvious
beneficiaries from Djukanovic’s much-vaunted reforms are the highly
visible 20,000 or so policemen who appear to spend most of their time
taking bribes off drivers.
Within
Montenegro, Djukanovic again campaigned strongly on the ticket of an
open multi-ethnic
society and went out of his way to court the votes of the country’s
Albanian minority. This time the latter had their own "Alliance
for Malesia" (the Albanian name for the area in south-west Montenegro
where most of them live) which is pressing for the town of Tuzi and
neighbouring villages to be given their own municipality. Like the newly-built
mosques and medresa in this area, that may come. For now, though,
it was clearly in the DPS’s interest to be able to count on these 8,000
or so Albanian voters to boost their position in Podgorica (the total
electorate of which is 112,000).
But
Djukanovic’s main contribution to the campaign took the form of meetings
with the Western statesmen who are supposed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder
with his policies. A week before voting he was received for 90 minutes
by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Earlier, the head of the
EU’s Balkan Stability Pact, Bodo Hombach, in addition to refusing to
meet with members of the opposition, assured Djukanovic that in spite
of its not being a sovereign state Montenegro would be allowed to take
part in the Thessaloniki summit in July as a full participant.
In
general, despite the high level of anticipation surrounding these elections
and the pronounced polarization of society, the campaign passed off
without incident – the main exception being the physical assault of
a leading Liberal Alliance politician by Djukanovic’s brother. For its
part the SNP complained that members of their "For Yugoslavia –
Momir Bulatovic" coalition had been hindered by police from traveling
freely round the republic to hold rallies. They also said that they
had been contacted by a number of voters who had been offered payments
by state officials, and asked to help in initiating legal proceedings
against them.
Their
main problem, again as in the 1997 presidential and 1998 parliamentary
elections (see BHHRG reports), seems to have been an absence of publicity
stemming from the Montenegrin media’s near-total backing for Djukanovic.
Attempts to develop a radio station out of Dan, the one paper
sympathetic to them, have so far been blocked by the authorities, while
the signals of Serbian TV and – to a somewhat lesser extent – TV "YU
Info" continue to be jammed in most parts of the republic. (Belgrade-published
newspapers, by contrast, do seem to be getting through.) Excluded from
the better sites around the capital, the "For Yugoslavia"
coalition saw no point in putting up any posters, so that many voters
will have been all the more puzzled by the tens of thousands of "For
JULoslavia" posters that appeared round town the day before voting
(in clear breach of the pre-polling silent period). The aim, obviously,
was to scare away SNP voters by playing up the party’s alliance with
Mrs. Milosevic’s far less popular JUL.
Otherwise,
the campaign was overshadowed by the assassination two weeks before
voting of President Djukanovic’s national security advisor: Goran Zugic.
While unable to offer an explanation for this murder, the PDS has been
at pains to deny that it marks the onset of a spate of gangland-style
political executions similar to those that have been racking Serbia.
The SNP also refrained from making much out of the incident, but noted
that the criminal connections of the country’s rulers makes life for
all its citizens insecure.
Voting-day
Procedures
were the same as in the 1998 parliamentary elections – including the
use of a spray to show if someone had already voted and a transparent
ballot-box. Ballot-papers themselves, already carrying one official
seal, had to be stamped again prior to be being given to a voter, who
after making his choice had to tear off a serialized strip on each voting-slip
which would later be counted separately.
These
arguably over-elaborate mechanisms meant that voting proceeded (sometimes
painfully) slowly, but fears of over-crowding and disorder proved groundless
– even without a police presence in any of the polling stations visited.
Moreover, the main bone of contention in 1997 and 1998, the electoral
register, appears to have been largely overcome thanks to a new law
on voters’ lists carried through with the support of the opposition.
On this occasion only an average of three or four people per polling
station seemed unable to find their names on the register.
One
other less welcome innovation is the practice of the commission president
shouting out the three-digit number in the register beside each voter’s
name as the ballot-paper is handed over. Party observers would cross
this number off from sheets with numerical sequences running from 1
to 700 (the average number of voters per polling station). Though this
gave the impression of a bingo-hall, the reality is less innocent as
later comparison between these numbers and the electoral register would
enable parties to know precisely who voted.
But
stronger criticism should be reserved for the fact that three out of
the five members of each polling station commission were members of
the DPS. The party can argue that this is no more than a reflection
of its superior numbers in government (and its headquarters in Podgorica
are in fact located in the government’s main building.) But having such
one-sided representation of these commissions has been loudly criticized
by the OSCE in other countries, and was hardly likely to increase the
confidence of the opposition in the electoral process.
In
practice, however, problems on voting-day were largely limited to the
Albanian-populated areas, where one polling-station had to be temporarily
closed when a dispute broke out between commission members. In another
that we visited, a school with a picture in its hall of Rexhep Qosja
(one of Kosovo’s longest-standing champions of the cause of independence),
there was clear evidence of family-voting occurring – made easier by
the fact that voters were "signing" their names in the register
with a thumb-print. None of this seemed to be considered unusual by
the representative of CEMI – a local NGO (partly-funded by US AID) which
had observers, usually between the ages of 20 and 25 and wearing bright
orange T-shirts, in all of Podgorica’s 207 polling-stations.
Results
On
this occasion the polls proved to be accurate. Podgorica was won outright
by the "For a Better Life" coalition (which took 28 out of
the city council’s 54 seats to "For Yugoslavia"’s 22), while
in Herceg Novi positions were reversed (with Bulatovic’s coalition winning
19 out of 35 seats to Djukanovic’s 14). The gamble – if that is what
it was – of the Liberal Alliance hardly paid off, as they won just four
seats in Podgorica and two in Herceg Novi. Also unsurprisingly, the
Albanian coalition collected just 1,500 votes, thereby demonstrating
that for this minority autonomy is all very well but subsidies are even
better.
Indeed,
the only surprise was the very high turn-out, which at almost 80 per
cent in Podgorica points to a degree of politicization greater than
anywhere else in the former Yugoslavia.
Reactions
from the two main political forces were interesting, as the DPS’s obvious
joy at improving their position in the country’s capital (with the increased
scope for patronage that goes with it) was tempered by frustration at
their failure on the coast. They blamed their defeat there on the high
proportion of war veterans and pensioners – as though these groups have
no right to their opinions. The party was also resentful of the lack
of gratitude shown by the several thousand refugees who settled in Herceg
Novi soon after the outbreak of war in 1991. However, judging by the
dreadful conditions in which thousands of Serbian and Roma refugees
forced out of Kosovo last year are living on the outskirts of Podgorica,
their anger at the Montenegrin authorities may be justified.
For
its part, the SNP again failed to live up to its reputation by not
going on the rampage through the streets of Podgorica as the results
came through. Instead, the "For Yugoslavia" coalition’s candidate
for mayor, Predrag Bulatovic, reacted entirely rationally by resigning
as its leader in Podgorica.
Implications
This
last move will no doubt give rise to speculation that the "moderates"
within the SNP (of which Predrag Bulatovic was considered to be one)
will be driven out by proxies of the Milosevices and Vojislav Seselj
in Belgrade determined to force the issue of a referendum to a head.
This is unlikely to happen, however. Not because they are afraid of
the outcome – as any such vote they would almost certainly win; rather
since Montenegro is currently part of the Yugoslav federation, there
is simply no point for them pushing for something they have already.
On
the other hand, federal elections had already been promised by Momir
Bulatovic to take place before the end of the year. These will be important
as the DPS has long complained that it is not properly represented at
this level, which is what enables both Bulatovic and Milosevic to hang
onto their positions.
So
the (very) mixed results of these local elections are a cause for concern
both for them and their Western cheerleaders. The latter have responded
by effectively calling on the DPS to get its act together. Among them
the principal architect of Nato’s bombing campaign against Serbia, Javier
Solana, was quoted as saying that "[This] is a challenge for Western
countries to tailor support so that it really encourages reform and
structural changes that benefit ordinary people". Why "ordinary
people" have not already benefited from the massive sums of money
pumped into Montenegro over the last few years, Solana declined to speculate.
There
is, though, a genuine problem for the republic’s Western sponsors, in
that its strange status as a semi-independent state fails – much to
everyone’s dissatisfaction – to qualify it for World Bank or IMF assistance.
This may explain why the ever thoughtful George Soros has recently established
the first international bank in Montenegro, which will have initial
capital of $ 5 million.
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