After governing Montenegro for 29 years as the successor to the League of Communists of Montenegro, the big-tent Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) lost its first-ever electoral race on August 30. Three political coalitions, each including a number of opposition parties and movements with rather divergent programs won the day by the skin of their teeth and secured a parliamentary majority of 41 in an 81-seat parliament. Most importantly, the change of power occurred via the ballot box and not under the watchful eyes of tank commanders, riot police units, and army sharp shooters.
While DPS alone won 30 seats it would not have been able to form the next government had all of its earlier allies rushed to its aid. Such a coalition would have had only 40 seats and would require 1 member of parliament from the opposition parties to cross the floor and deny to the opposition what it had achieved through the ballot box. It is, however, worth noting that over the past three decades in Montenegro post-election political horse-trading and floor-crossing in favour of DPS has happened more than once. In other words, to use a popular colloquialism, “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”.
Over the past three decades in Montenegro post-election political horse-trading and floor-crossing in favour of DPS has happened more than once.
Assuming that the dream of turning the DPS into the parliamentary opposition materializes, the new governing coalition faces a daunting task of salvaging the devastated economy of a country whose foreign debt approaches 85% of its annual GDP. Dismantling a hybrid regime and deconstructing the discourse of stability requires time, courage, and enviable political skills. The new government has to engage in a series of painful economic, political, financial, legal and social structural reforms. It has to restart the capacity-building process and gradually turn state institutions and partitocracy into functioning and independent segments of a state bureaucracy. It also has to initiate a healing process in a society deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines. The understanding of this effort as a generational task should be a guiding principle for the newly-minted election victors.
