If Montenegro were a functional democracy, governments would change in election cycles. Left, right or center would go and come back. The victory of the opposition would not be presented as the end of the world - a typhoon that will take the country away.
However, Montenegro is not a democracy. That is why it is a wonder that Đukanović lost the elections, despite the monopolies he holds, or, as OSCE observers would say diplomatically, a huge institutional advantage. Only Lukashenko in Belarus and Putin in Russia have such an advantage in Europe. That's why this victory is even greater.
The government, therefore, completely controlled the election process here for decades, had an army of safe voters, the media, huge money, an apparatus of coercion, disordered voter lists with phantom voters and - it lost. This does not only speak of the erosion of a clientelistic and corrupt order, which is slowly being abandoned by even the most faithful supporters, but also of the enormous democratic potential and desire of citizens to control power and change.
It is clear: the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) played a huge role in these elections. Djukanović's rival was his former ally, the Metropolitan of Amfilohije. But it would be wrong to conclude that Đukanović was overthrown only by the SPC and the Law on Freedom of Religion. Another, no less important, opponent was civil Montenegro. Đukanović could never fall just because of the SPC and the Law, even though it was the last straw. After all, the Church did not get more involved in the presidential elections in 2013, or the parliamentary elections in 2016. And in both of those cycles, Đukanović lost, and the opposition was fraudulently robbed of victory.
No matter how much the propaganda wants to disguise - all nations voted against the DPS on Sunday, Amfilohi's believers, but also those who are far from the SPC - dedicated citizens who believe that Montenegro needs a government that will build institutions and implement the necessary economic reforms , establish a fair distribution, strong health and education, stop the departure of young people and experts, reform the judiciary and introduce the rule of law, move faster towards the European Union and create a state for all.
All those who believe that the most sensitive issues are resolved by compromises, and not by deepening divisions, also voted against Đukanović. Governments committed to the common interest resolve sensitive issues through dialogue. Đukanović had no ear for it. Instead of agreeing with the SPC, he wanted an enemy. This time he overplayed it. And what Balša says: a dictator must fall every once in a while.
As in other autocracies, when the leaders are removed from reality - they are finished, even when the entire apparatus of coercion is with them. And this one of ours has been walking in a closed space for a long time with no controlled power. He slipped away from the real world. He wrapped himself in the flag, the anthem, the language and the country, while he and his people robbed and destroyed our space.
He surrounded himself with extreme Montenegrin nationalists (some of whom, not so long ago, fervently invoked Dušan's empire), or better, clients, who bullied him and pushed him into ruin with constant requests to add another letter to the letter and paint history... As if identity can be "circled" by force, when the leader thinks of it, and that after he had previously, while colluding with Milošević, completely destroyed everything Montenegrin.
That Đukanović was in a world of his own, with a narrowed consciousness, was clear when he announced the establishment of a church at the congress of the DPS, supposedly a left-wing party. As if Montenegro is not a secular state and as if churches are introduced by party decrees. A year before the elections, with the hawks, he pushed the DPS into conflict with the Serbian Orthodox Church, only to impose a new topic and vampirize the past after the "Koverat" affair, and present himself as the sole guardian of the state.
Concerned analysts, including many of our friends from the so-called other Serbia and the region, see the change of government as the collapse of Montenegro, and a danger to the stability of the region. It turns out, according to these interpretations, that this country can survive only as a dictatorship. So, only one more cycle of thirty years for Đukanović and his ilk: to drive out the Russians, kill the Serbs, surround the church, create a state-building opposition and ravage what is left along the way.
So, while Đukanović is a guarantor for NATO, it does not matter what the nature of the government in Montenegro is and how people live here. The fact that we are a hybrid regime, that we are suffocating in corruption and crime, that we are impoverished, that we are negotiating with the EU for the longest time in history due to the unwillingness to reform the system - it is left aside, it is important that the leader keeps the correct strategic course.
If this country can only survive as an autocracy, under someone's firm hand, then let it be gone. Why maintain it by force.
So, the hour has struck. And although many followers thought it was eternal, it is over. Now it is only important that the transition is carried out peacefully, that Montenegro becomes the country of all its citizens. Enough of retaliation and conflict.
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