Montenegro: Politics & Current Events

[Carlin]

Minor clashes being reported in Niksic, Montenegro between police and ethnic Serb demonstrators.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Interesting development.

[Carlin]

Footage from Zeta (Montenegro) - Dec 29, 2019 - Serb protesters attack police:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDulZdDi3xM

[Carlin]

Montenegrins brutally beat young Serb in Podgorica - Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J0_TXLTerE

Marko Milacic Reveals Identity of Beaten Young Man: High School Graduate still in hospital:
http://engnews24h.com/marko-milacic-...spital-region/

The young man who was brutally beaten on the street in Podgorica last night is Josif Vukicevic, a high school graduate in Danilovgrad. This information was posted on his Facebook profile by Montenegrin leader Marko Milacic. Milacic says the beaten Vukicevic lives under Ostrog and reports that the injured student is still in hospital.

[Soldier of Macedon]

https://balkaninsight.com/2020/07/23...ntenegro-vote/

Army of ‘Phantom Voters’ Casts Doubt over Fairness of Montenegro Vote

Montenegro holds a parliamentary election next month, but even before the vote count begins, the numbers don’t add up. When Montenegro holds a parliamentary election next month, more than 50,000 ‘phantom voters’ will be eligible to vote; in some municipalities, the number of registered voters exceeds the actual population; more than half of names on the electoral roll are listed without a valid address. These are the main findings of an investigation by the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network – LUPA and Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, fuelling concern over the risk of fraud in a vote coming against a backdrop of deep polarisation in the tiny former Yugoslav republic. “It’s very important that parties and NGOs that monitor elections scrutinise the register so that the election results will be uncontested by all,” said Boris Raonic, head of the Civil Alliance, which promotes human rights and the rule of law in Montenegro. “The authorities must remove any doubts when it comes to the existence of phantom voters,” he told LUPA/BIRN.

On June 22 this year, with an election due on August 30, Montenegro’s interior ministry announced that the electoral roll contains the names of 541,232 eligible voters. Something does not add up, however. At the start of this year, according to the state Statistical Office, MONSTAT, the population of Montenegro stood at 621,873. That included 36,769 children up to the age of four, some 15,000 5-6 year-olds and a total of 67,166 7-15 year-olds enrolled in school for the 2019/2020 academic year. Together with some 14,000 16-18 year-olds, according to MONSTAT, that makes just under 133,000 minors not eligible to vote. That means there are 52,294 more registered voters than actual adults in Montenegro. To confuse matters further, Interior Minister Mevludin Nuhodzic said in July that Montenegro has 678,178 resident citizens excluding foreigners. And that’s not all. An analysis of the available data shows that in some of Montenegro’s 24 municipalities, the number of voters is greater than the local population. In some areas, the electoral register data does not tally with the reported number of pre-school children, those in school and the adult population, reinforcing concerns about the existence of so-called phantom voters. The Montenegrin constitution grants voting rights to all citizens who have turned 18 and who have been resident in Montenegro for at least two years before polling day. The residence requirement is unusual in Europe; the opposition says it is designed to disqualify the significant number of Montenegrin citizens living in neighbouring Serbia, who, the opposition theory goes, are less likely to vote for the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS. The DPS has been in power, uninterrupted, since the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia three decades ago. The party emerged from the League of Communists, which itself ruled from the end of World War Two. The opposition has already cried foul over the data discrepancies; the interior ministry, however, has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed talk of ‘phantom voters’. It did not respond to LUPA/BIRN’s request for a response to this story.

The phantom voters uncovered by LUPA/BIRN are concentrated heavily in the municipalities of Petnjica, Plav, Gusinje and Ulcinj, where there are more registered voters than actual residents. The areas where there are considerably more registered voters than specifically adult residents. Coastal areas generally feature larger numbers of foreigners, hence the difference between the number of voters and the number of citizens is even bigger. The municipalities of Petnjica, Plav, Gusinje and Ulcinj are known for large diaspora communities living in Western Europe, particularly Luxembourg, and the United States. Opposition parties and civil society groups have accused the authorities of keeping these diaspora communities on the electoral roll, seeing them as reliable DPS voters. The current Law on Residence and Domicile Registers has dropped a previous provision by which those living abroad were automatically erased from the list of eligible voters. Critics said it was no surprise that Montenegro’s national airline announced it would resume flights to Luxembourg in the second half of July. However, on July 18 the flight was cancelled just two days after it was announced. They accuse the DPS of selectively applying the residency rule, keeping DPS voters abroad on the electoral roll and erasing those of the opposition. In 2013, in the coastal town of Herceg Novi, audio surfaced that appeared to feature DPS MP Daliborka Pejovic discussing erasing hundreds of voters from the local electoral roll since, she appeared to say, “the huge majority of them vote against us.” It would help “engineer a favourable election result,” the voice on the audio said. Pejovic said there was nothing illegal in what she said and authorities never investigated the case.

Further analysis of Montenegro’s census results from 1991, 2003 and and data from the Statistical Office throws up more strange trends. While the population of Montenegro has increased by fewer than 7,000 [1.11 per cent] since 1991, the number of eligible voters has risen by more than 138,000 [34.33 per cent] over the same period. At the same time the number of Montenegrin citizens living in the country fell by 19,429 [3.30 per cent] as of 2018. The birth rate has dropped significantly, while the mortality rate is up. Interestingly, the number of voters jumped sharply between 1991 and 1992 and again between 2004 and 2006. That coincided with referendums – the first on whether to remain in a union with Serbia and the second on whether to leave that union – both tainted by allegations of vote-rigging. “The estimates of some political entities and analyses of official statistics point to tens of thousands of phantom voters,” said Ines Mrdovic, legal adviser at the NGO Action for Social Justice. “That’s enough to justify concerns about widespread manipulation which may likely take place in the late August ballot. Both local and international observers frequently raise the issue and demand the phantoms be removed from the electoral roll as one of preconditions for fair and free elections,” Mrdovic told LUPA/BIRN. “The government has never tried to review the register as it doesn’t want to shoot itself in the foot.” Further fuelling that concern is the staggeringly high number of eligible voters listed on the electoral roll without an address. Momcilo Koprivica, an MP of the opposition Democratic Montenegro party, sounded the alarm in October 2019, pointing out that a staggering 278,820 voters were registered under so-called ‘BB’ addresses, meaning no street name or apartment number. Koprivica complained that such an oversight was ripe for abuse. The total electorate at the time numbered 532,599. The government acknowledged the figures but dismissed his concern, saying BB addresses could not affect the result.

[Carlin]

Bosniaks in Montenegro live in 'fear, anxiety' following election

Bosniak minority has been targeted in series of attacks after election ends in a new majority dominated by nationalists.

by Mersiha Gadzo

Full article - URL:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...142818047.html

5 Sept 2020

Bosniak citizens of Montenegro say fear and anxiety pervades their communities after a series of attacks and vandalism targeted the minority population following the country's parliamentary election, which ushered in a new majority government dominated by right-wing nationalists.

The intense election campaign pitted President Milo Djukanovic's pro-Western Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) against the right-wing "For the Future of Montenegro" (ZBCG) bloc, comprised mainly of Serb nationalist parties that seek closer ties with Belgrade and Moscow.

ZBCG, combined with two other opposition alliances, achieved a razor-thin majority grabbing 41 out of 81 seats in parliament, bringing the DPS rule to an end after leading the NATO-member country for 30 years.

The campaign largely focused on a dispute over a law on religious rights introduced in late 2019, staunchly opposed by the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC).

The SPC argued the law allows the state to confiscate its property in order to set up a separate church, sparking protests over the last 10 months supported by the opposition. The government has denied the allegation.

Attacks and provocations against Bosniaks began as soon as exit poll results were released last Sunday and opposition supporters began celebrating on the streets.

Bosniaks are the third largest ethnic group in the small Adriatic nation of 622,000 after Montenegrins and Serbs.

Two Bosniaks, a young man and his father, were attacked at a cafe in the city centre of Pljevlja on Sunday evening.

Abid Sabanovic, 22, from the town of Pljevlja told Al Jazeera some far-right supporters drove through Bosniak neighbourhoods with the sole aim of provoking residents there.

"These parts of the city aren't situated on the main roads so there was no reason to go there," Sabanovic said, adding the supporters were singing ultranationalist Chetnik songs about Draza Mihajlovic - a World War II-era Chetnik Serb figure .

"Such lyrics have nothing to do with the election, rather they represent an expression of nationalism," Sabanovic said, adding there is "fear, anxiety" among Bosniaks.

Mihajlovic was the leader of the Serb nationalist Chetnik movement, many members of which collaborated with Nazi forces. According to historians, Chetnik forces killed tens of thousands of Bosniaks, Croats and other non-Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.

History repeated itself in the early 1990s when Serb forces identifying with the Chetnik movement committed genocide and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, killing Bosniaks and Croats to make way for a Greater Serbia.

Bosniaks in neighbouring Pljevelja, situated 40km east of the Bosnian border, were not exempt from violence either. In 1992, with the outbreak of war in neighbouring Bosnia, authorities persecuted and killed Bosniaks in and around Pljevlja.

By July of that year, more than a dozen Bosniak villages near Pljevlja were "ethnically-cleansed", and in September a series of 27 explosions targeted Bosniak stores and homes. Mosques were destroyed.

"It's not surprising [they were singing ultranationalist songs] considering that both the SPC and the leading opposition party nurture ultranationalism and the Chetnikism," Sabanovic said.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Carlin15

Bosniak citizens of Montenegro say fear and anxiety pervades their communities after a series of attacks and vandalism targeted the minority population following the country's parliamentary election, which ushered in a new majority government dominated by right-wing nationalists.

A few observations. First, this article makes it seem as though Serbs are roaming around Montenegro threatening all of the Bosniaks, yet the only examples cited are of some idiot Serbs who attacked two Bosniaks at a cafe and drove through some towns singing their idiot songs. Let the normal people decide whether that characterisation is representative or sensationalism. Second, Serbs did indeed commit several atrocities during the Bosnian War, but the Bosniaks weren't exactly free from criticism either. The Chetniks did collaborate with the Nazis but so did the Bosniaks. It's no surprise that the pro-Islamist Al Jazeera fails to mention these facts. Then again, expecting objectivity seems to be too idealistic these days. Lastly, the Montenegrin people should have the right to nurture their national identity and there are clearly some issues they need to sort out with the Serbs. On the other hand, Djukanovic, the epitome of opportunism, has basically controlled Montenegro as his own fiefdom in one form or another for almost 30 years and has become filthy rich in the process. Despot much? Not according to the West and their cohorts, so long as he keeps kissing their collective arses. No doubt a figure that the horde of northadonian politicians aspire to emulate.

[Karposh]

To be honest, I haven't really bothered to acquaint myself with the political situation in Montenegro...it just doesn't interest me. However, since we're discussing them, does anyone really know how the Crnogorci feel about their national identity? I mean, do they actually have a strong sense of separate Montenegrin identity or do they consider themselves to be merely little Serbs?

With regard to their recent elections, YouTube recommended the following short video for me. It's pretty impressive and the narrative seems to be a win for the Orthodox faithful over the long ruling atheist / leftist Government.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH-lrRraJGA

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Karposh

....does anyone really know how the Crnogorci feel about their national identity? I mean, do they actually have a strong sense of separate Montenegrin identity or do they consider themselves to be merely little Serbs?

There are plenty of Montenegrins who espouse an identity separate from the Serbs and Montenegro has enough of a distinct history to classify its people as a separate nation. That there are many who also have a Serb identity has a lot to do with the stranglehold over the churches in Montenegro which is maintained by the Serbian Orthodox Church. Another problem is that those wishing to promote the individualism of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church are inevitably (and unfortunately) linked to Djukanovic and his cronies. So, whilst these elections may be perceived as a win for Orthodoxy in some respects because it is a clear sign that people don't want religious property transferred to the state, it can also be perceived as a loss by Montenegrins because it means many people would rather the Serbian Orthodox Church retain ownership instead. Perhaps the association of the Montengrin Orthodox Church with corrupt elements has hindered its chances to win the hearts and minds of the people. In any case, right or wrong, today's Orthodox churches are connected with national identities and as such the churches in Montenegro should be under the sway of an untainted Montenegrin Orthodox Church. It may have been different were it not for all of the politics in the Orthodox world.

[Carlin]

The Orthodox population of Montenegro is broadly split into two segments:

- Those who have a strong and separate sense of Montenegrin identity (completely separate/different historically from ethnic Serbs).
- Those who identify themselves as ethnic Serbs and refer to all of Montenegro as "Serbian Sparta". At worst, they consider those who identify themselves as ethnic Montenegrins as a pseudo-scientific and pseudo-historical notion/construct and don't recognize the existence of such a group at any level. At best, they consider Montenegrins to be misguided and "brainwashed" Serbs. Some Serbs consider the "process of invention" of the Montenegrin separate identity as identical to what took place in Macedonia and "De-Serbianization of Macedonians".

There is also the church issue and conflict. The ethnic Serbs, but also many/some ethnic Montenegrins actually belong to the powerful Serbian Orthodox Church headed by the ultranationalist Amfilohije Radović (he has been known to have a pretty intransigent and nationalist stance against the Macedonian church; ethnic Montenegrins consider him to be a "sworn enemy of Montenegro".)

The ethnic Montenegrins are members of the uncanonical Montenegrin Orthodox Church. Although the church situation in Montenegro is different than in Macedonia - much like the Macedonian case - the Serbian church will forever use its position and status within the Orthodox world to block and recognize the existence of a separate Montenegrin church.

With regard to their recent elections that Karposh mentioned, the "win" for the Orthodox faithful over the long "ruling atheist / leftist Government" is actually a win for Amfilohije and the Serbian Orthodox Church over the government of Milo Djukanovic. The ethnic (Orthodox) Montenegrins would not consider this a win "for the Orthodox faithful" but rather a devastating loss. The Serbian political parties have been clamoring to change the state flag and anthem but it looks like that won't happen any time soon (they basically want to "reinstate the Serbian tricolor variant" as the state flag of Montenegro).

According to the most recent census, Montenegrins constitute 45% of the population of Montenegro while the Serbs are at (almost) 29% mark. However (confusingly), according to the most recent language statistics from 2011, 42.88% of the population declared Serbian as their language while 36.97% of the population declared Montenegrin as their language.

To further complicate and confuse matters, according to the language statistics there are people who speak "Bosanski/Bosnian" and "Boshnjacki/Bosniak" which are counted and classified as separate entries/languages.

URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contro..._in_Montenegro