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Montenegro Planning New Constitution

15 05 2007  Final touches to constitution are being made, but it will most probably fail to put an end to years of political turmoil.

By Nedjeljko Rudovic in Podgorica

The months-long debate on the constitution draft has ended but leading political parties are still divided over its composition. The draft document is now offered for a so-called public debate, which will last until May 28.

The Movement for Change, PZP, the strongest opposition party, said it would vote for the bill only if the authorities agreed to an opposition demand for a snap election after the constitution is passed. The ruling parties have rebuffed the demand.

The constitution will fail to win the required two-thirds majority in parliament if the opposition votes against it. If only the ruling parties support the constitution, it will be put to national referendum and require a simple majority for approval.

There’s agreement on 80 per cent of the contents of the current draft of the constitution, but the issues of national identity and minority rights remain a stumbling block.

According to the 2003 census, Montenegro’s population is 43 per cent Montenegrin, 32 per cent Serb, seven per cent Bosniak, six per cent Albanian, five per cent Muslim and one per cent Croat.

Given that the 44.5 per cent who voted against Montenegro’s independence are Serbs who wanted the state union with Serbia to survive, political conflicts rooted in national identity continued after the May 21 ballot.

The pro-Serb section of the opposition headed by a Serb Alliance, whose leader is Andrija Mandic, insists the constitution should keep Serbian as Montenegro’s official language while he also advocates the changing of national symbols so that they look more Serbian, He also demands protection for the Serb Orthodox Church in Montenegro.

The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, led by Milo Djukanovic and Ranko Krivokapic’s Social Democrats, SDP, have backed off from their initial insistence that Montenegrin must stand as the official language and hinted they might be willing to reach a compromise on the issue.

However, they are now between a rock and a hard place as the country’s cultural institutions demand Montenegrin as the official language and the inclusion of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in the constitution.

The ruling parties said they were prepared to make Montenegrin-Serbian the official language and leave out all religious institutions from the constitution; instead, guaranteeing complete freedom for all religious groups. Predictably, both camps are unhappy with the proposal.

Nebojsa Medojevic, the PZP leader, supports the initiative, as he believes national identity issues are peripheral.

The ruling DPS-SDP coalition has 41 seats in the 81-seat parliament. Winning the support of the 11 PZP deputies for the constitution would leave them needing just one more vote to reach the required two-thirds threshold and their best chance of achieving that goal is to persuade an Albanian or a Bosniak representative to side with them. The overall objective, however, looks unrealistic as things stand at the moment.

One reason is that the PZP too wants the snap parliamentary elections to coincide with the regular parliamentary ballot while the minorities are complaining that they are deprived of many rights, namely the one to have guaranteed seats in parliament.

“Political stability in Montenegro largely depends on how the constitution is passed. It would be ideal to pass it with a two-thirds majority in parliament as that would mean the political elite’s overwhelming majority is prepared to support it and give up some of its demands to have it,” said Srdjan Darmanovic, a political analyst, told Balkan Insight.

“ If, on the other hand, the [two] camps remain refuse to change their positions, a referendum would be the second best choice to stabilise the political scene as it would leave a number of key political figures unhappy.”

Darmanovic believes the chances of obtaining a two-thirds majority in parliament are slim, as are the prospects of forcing the ruling parties to call snap elections.

Medojevic said the PZP wouldn’t vote for the constitution unless the government caved in to the snap election demand, even if his alliance agreed with the ruling parties on the bill’s details. He argues that having an election is the natural course of action that should follow the passing of a constitution, and also warned that ignoring minority rights was a bad idea.

“They need to be given constitutional guarantees that will dispel their fears of unfair majority rule,” said Medojevic, adding that the PZP also demanded a general re-election of the state judges and prosecutors after the constitution is passed.

“If we come close to striking an agreement, those unwilling to work towards a consensus will be putting their own political future at stake. If it comes down to the referendum, it will most certainly be used to stir up tension and deepen the rifts in Montenegro.”

The DPS has high hopes of scraping a two-thirds majority in parliament.

“A substantial part of the opposition sees the constitution as a means to an end in political conflicts. Those who opposed independence at last year’s ballot are now trying to nullify their defeat by demanding a constitution that would fit their alleged objective of defending the Serb identity in Montenegro,” said DPS spokesman Rajko Kovacevic.

Slaven Radunovic, the Serb Popular Party vice-president, told Balkan Insight he had “no illusions the authorities would reach agreement on the crucial issues”.

“Unless the DPS shows a minimum of good will and backs off on these issues, the Serb Alliance will definitely not vote for the constitution. That means there will be no stability, although I don’t expect any kind of unrest,” said Radunovic, whose party heads the Serb Alliance in Montenegro.

Rade Bojovic, a political analyst, is convinced the way the constitution is adopted will be one of the defining factors for mid-term political stability in Montenegro.

“I think ignoring identity issues and forging grotesque alliances among parties to get round the delicate matter of defining the status of the Montenegrins in their only country can only add to the political instability,” said Bojovic in his assessment of widespread claims that Montenegrin won’t be instated as the official language while the Montenegrin Orthodox Church will be officially recognised.

He added that developing the rule of law as a principle and making Montenegro’s society more advanced would be an uphill task if it is left in the hands of the country’s corrupt and dysfunctional political elite.

“The constitution saga indicates the authorities are unwilling to face the fact that a country is not some kind of a province where one can get away with transitional half-measures with no clear objective,” said Bojovic.

“The opposition, hovering between its discredited ethnic identity imported from neighbouring Serbia and the unconvincing pro-European rhetoric, has also offered very little to look forward to. The bottom line is that nothing will essentially change after the constitution is passed one way or the other.”


Nedjeljko Rudovic is a journalist with the Podgorica-based Vijesti daily and BIRN coordinator for Montenegro. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.

This article was published with the support of the British embassy in Belgrade and National Endowment for Democracy - NED, as part of BIRN's Minority Media Training and Reporting Project.