Putin has good reason to smile today

Montenegro’s parliamentary election Sunday put the collection of opposition parties on top by a single vote, defeating the current governing coalition led by President Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS). DPS has been in power for 30 years. The opposition is far more pro-Russian, pro-Serb, and anti-NATO than the center-left DPS, which presided over Montenegro’s independence in 2006 and its entrance into the Alliance in 2017.

Election day by all accounts so far went well, with relatively few irregularities and none that appear to have affected the outcome. Three-quarters of registered voters went to the polls.

The campaign however was marked by interference from Serbia, which supported the opposition, and the Serbian church, which sponsored big demonstrations in recent months against a law it regarded as prejudicial to its interests. Moscow was also active with money and media outlets. There was little pushback from Brussels or Washington, belying the allegation of some European analysts that the West backs stability (“stabilocracy”) even at the cost of democracy. In fact, this has proven not to be the case in recent years in Macedonia with the fall of Prime Minister Gruevski and in Kosovo with the pending indictment of President Thaci. Djukanovic might have wished more backing than he got.

He will now have to preside over a government formation process with still highly uncertain results. The opposition parties have not cohered around a single platform. Who will lead the new government and who will occupy which posts is not clear. There is certainly a possibility that some of the former governing parties that participated in the DPS-led coalition, might want to join the new government, though its pro-Serb and pro-Moscow leanings will make that difficult for Bosniak and Albanian parties that have traditionally allied with DPS. One of the opposition parties has declared forcefully that it will not join a government that includes DPS. It may take a while before the fog clears and a new government can be sworn in.

At stake is Montenegro’s pro-Western orientation and even its sovereignty and independence. The Church-led protests were explicitly aimed at preventing the formation of a Montenegrin Orthodox Church and preserving the property claims of the Serbian Church. Much of the opposition now coming to power opposed Montenegrin independence and NATO membership. Some have denied the genocide at Srbrenica during the Bosnian war and oppose Montenegrin recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo. Montenegro has opened all the chapters of the EU’s acquis communautaire and is leading the regatta for accession. It is not clear that those coming to power will want, or be capable of, continuing in that direction.

So what we’ve got here is a democratic election that puts the future of democratic Montenegro very much in doubt. Without its commitments to NATO, the EU, and good regional relations, Montenegro could find itself Moscow’s leading achievement in hybrid warfare in the Balkans, where it has repeatedly tried to block countries from turning West. Putin has good reason to smile today.

Here is the video of the interview I did with Voice of America this morning: