Montenegrin Miracle: Dismantling of the M. Djukanovic’s Regime

Abstract

Theme of the paper: the confrontation between the government and opposition forces with regard to the parliamentary elections of August 30, 2020. The paper analyzes the factors behind the opposition's first victory through the prism of the thirty year-long period. The author gives credit to the MontenegrinPrimorye Metropolia of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which made a decisive contribution to the defeat of the incumbent authorities, i.e. the politically disoriented President and the government who entered into conflict with the hierarchs through their arrogant and short-sighted monopoly rule. It was precisely the Church circles led by the late Metropolitan Amphilochius who managed to consolidate the ever-quarreling opposition, give them a new promising leader and offer an effective political platform that made the unification of the proEuropean and Pro-Serbian parts of the opposition possible. The paper examines the international reaction to the transfer of power and its internal and foreign policy consequences. Chances of the new Cabinet of experts summoned by Zdravko Krivokapic to complete a full time are not too high. The trouble of the present coalition is not only its slim – by only one Assembly mandate – majority. The majority itself is extremely fragile, since the leaders of the Democratic Front, which forms the core of its pro-Serbian part, do not hide their feeling of being deceived and deprived of the division of trophies. Thereby they consider holding a snap parliamentary election almost a single task of the Cabinet. However, the government is already able to start dismantling the existing authoritarian regime of Milo Djukanovic. As far as its foreign policy is concerned it can be assumed that the new authorities would try to normalize relations with Serbia and Russia, deliberately damaged by Milo Djukanovic, but the fundamentals of the priority relations with the EU and NATO will remain unchanged.