Montenegro’s political crisis of 1997-1998

Abstract

The subject of this research is the struggle of political elites in Montenegro, which was a constituent federated state of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the late 1990s. In 1997, as a result of split between the ruling in Montenegro Democratic Party of Socialists, the political life of the country faced a severe crisis. The opposition wing within Democratic Party of Socialists, headed by the young politician Milo Đukanović won the confrontation. The result of this conflict became a drastic change in the country's political orientation in its relations with Serbia and the federal center in Belgrade. The author examines the factors that caused crisis situation and proliferation in the republic. The article determines the key stages of political confrontation in the republic and their fundamental characteristics. The first stage marks the internal struggle of the elites, juxtaposition of reformist wing of the ruling party, which criticized the allied authorities in Belgrade, and its conservative parliamentary group that supported alliance with the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its leader Slobodan Milošević. At the second stage, the confrontation extends beyond the republic and shifts onto the federal level, becoming an inter-republican conflict. The scientific novelty of this work consists in the original approach towards studying the topic at hand, using the new sources and literature.