By GENC POLLO
Perhaps the laws of politics have the certainty of the laws of physics when it pertains to the king maker of a government majority.
Abazović and his “URA” party were the king makers in the government formed after the general elections of August 2020. They enabled a change of power after more than two decades and of the ruling party after seven decades. No small feat per se!
However, the coalition was a motley crew with its largest member a pro Russian, pro Serbian (actually Serbian), anti NATO, anti independent Kosovo and not pro EU. That puts a limit to an ambitious king maker: Abazović was appointed Deputy PM with responsibility for the security sector. The exposure and severing of some old corrupt power networks was an achievement. Despite sometimes questionable legality.
However, not many other government achievements to show; certainly gaffes and blunders galore. The incidents around the enthronement of a Serbian Church bishop in Cetinje, the old capital city, marked the end of this government. Rather unexpectedly and surprisingly the next government would feature Abazović as PM and his arch foe President Djukanović’s party as the main coalition force.
In the best case this new government would stabilize the choppy political situation and prepare for new elections including consensual electoral reform and voters lists revision. Ideally would undertake real reforms required by the EU accession process.
Abazović did neither. He chose instead to poke in the eye his government largest bearer: the party of the president.
First by declaring his intention to join the Open Balkans initiative.
Second by signing an sell out agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The Open Balkans was rightly rejected by all previous Montenegro government (including the one Abazović served as DPM in) and the president as a superfluous duplicate of the Berlin Process’ Common Regional Market. Many saw it as a Serbian tool for achieving regional hegemony.
As Open Balkans has been used to isolate Kosovo for Abazović, an ethnic Albanian apart from. A self declared pro European, it should have been a double anathema (admittedly he run on a civil, non ethnic platform).
Djukanović’s party lost the 2020 election over an attempt to bolster the historic Montenegro Orthodox Church. Which was merged into the
Serbian Orthodox Church in 1918 as the until then independent Montenegro was merged into the future Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A legal attempt in 2019 to restitute property to the Montegrin Autocephalous Orthodox Church galvanized the pro Serbian opposition, increased their parliamentary seats and eventually made them government majority.
A national church in the Balkans has usually been central to the formation of national identity during the last centuries of Ottoman rule and the first decades of independence. It still remains an important reference.
It also can go overboard in ethnophiletism and advocate for killing the “others”. So the Serbian church during the Yugoslav secession wars, same with the Russian one currently. In this perspective the Djukanović’s strives become understandable.
The agreement PM Abazović signed with the head of the Serbian church gives the latter not just the disputed property, an eminent position in the country but also the confirmation of her historical primordial pretense. It would be difficult to imagine a more brutal public affront to the the president and to most of the coalition parties.
And for a civic leader, let alone an ethnic Albanian, it would be again an anathema to grant such concessions to the Serbian church.
Both attempts make Abazović some sort of Nixon. Only without the purpose and strategic foresight of that US President.
A final note about a government king maker and a junior coalition partner: you can veto things the senior partner wants to push through. Sometimes by voting against or more dramatically by threatening with government collapse. But also you cannot force your policy upon your bigger partner. This is certain as gravity and other laws of physics. And if it still matters it isn’t democratic!
Genc Pollo is a Former Minister and Member of Parliament
Tirana, 21 August 2022
