“We must not become a hotbed of global scammers” (Election of the weekend: Montenegro)

On Sunday, Montenegro will hold a parliamentary election. This will not be the first important election in Montenegro this year. In March, Montenegro held their presidential election, in two rounds. In the first round, incumbent president Milo Đukanović received 35% of the popular vote, forcing a run-off against Jakov Milatović (29%). Đukanović was soundly defeated 59-41 in the second round, as the opposition candidates and factions united around Milatović. The youngest head of state in Europe at 36, Milatović represented the newly formed Europe Now! Party, formed in 2022 after the collapse of a parliamentary coalition of a number of anti-Đukanović parties that managed to keep it together for about 18 months following the 2020 parliamentary election. This is officially a snap election; the 2022 coalition collapse was followed by an even weaker coalition that lasted only about 6 months, triggering then-President Đukanović to call an election immediately on the heels of his own re-election campaign.

This makes this an unusual moment in Montenegrin political history–Milo Đukanović’s party, the Democratic Party of Socialists, lost power in parliament in 2020 for the first time in the independent era, and he lost the presidency in 2023, placing him totally out of power. He has served as either president or prime minister of Montenegro for 28 of the 32 post-communist years, and has profoundly shaped the direction the country during that time. His close alliance with Milosevic helped Montenegro largely avoid much of the bloodshed of the Yugoslav wars by pledging to stay in the union (a plebiscite in 1992 to embrace a federation with Serbia, endorsed by Đukanović, won over 90% of the vote). But Đukanović was also instrumental in chartering a distinct path, eventually to independence, for Montenegro, by distancing himself from the increasingly isolated pariah and negotiating directly with NATO powers in 1999 to steer bombing campaigns away from Montenegro. He was also instrumental in shaping Serbia and Montenegro’s 2003 constitution, which created the path to independence that was used in 2006, making Montenegro (as Đukanović likes to put it) the first Balkan country not born in blood.

In the terms of Montenegrin politics, Đukanović is a “sovereigntist.” This faction’s primary goal was achieved with the successful independence referendum in 2006, and is opposed by two factions who seek closer relations with (for one faction) Europe and the EU, and (for the other faction) Serbia. (Đukanović’s sovereigntist vision isn’t isolationist; he’s not categorically against EU membership and supported Montenegro joining NATO in 2017.) The pro-Serbia faction includes some of the ugliness one might expect from it–the then-Justice Minister, who represented one of the Serbian parties, was dismissed from the cabinet in 2022 when his unfortunate habit of Srebrenica denialism came to light. (Denial of the atrocities of Srebrenica, for Serb nationalists, functions something like Holocaust denial does for anti-Semites.) Note that unlike some other successful recent succession referenda, Montenegro chose independence narrowly, with only 55.5% of the vote. (55% was the required threshold). A significant portion of the ethnically Serbian population (at least a quarter of the total population) didn’t want to sever ties with Belgrade, and still sees their loyalties more aligned with Belgrade than with Podgorica. Of course the pro-Europe faction seeks in many ways to pull the country in the other direction. One of the reasons these factions, as well as other diverse smaller interests (such as parties that seek to represent the small Albanian Muslim population) united against Đukanović is that he has demonstrated a sufficiently high degree of corruption, and some anti-democratic strongman tendencies, sufficient to downgrade Montenegro to “partly free” and a “hybrid regime” in Freedom House’s recent rankings.

The coming election will be the second electoral test for Europe Now!’s electoral strength, having passed the first with flying colors in the Presidential election. Polling has been scant, but both post-presidential election polls show Europe Now! leading the DPS-led sovereigntist coalition, by 5 and 24 points. There are 15 parties and coalitions running for 81 seats in this closed-list PR election, with a 3% threshold (and a lower threshold of .7%, enough for one MP, for parties representing minority groups that make up 15% of the population or less.) It’s difficult for me to imagine the Russian invasion of Ukraine hasn’t given the pro-Europe forces a bit of a boost. The expectation is for Europe Now! to win the most seats, but not an outright majority, so the shape of the next government will be determined to no small degree by who, and how, they need to include in their coalition. Based on the 2020-2022 experience, it would seem to be the case that avoiding the inclusion of any Serb nationalist parties would produce a more stable and effective government. The primary Serb nationalist list, For the Future of Montenegro, polled at 13 and 17% in the two most recent polls.

A recent shake-up in this election involves a fallen Crypto scammer from South Korea, Do Kwon. Kwon, who presided over the disappearance of many billions of investor’s dollars when his crypto-scam thingy collapsed, was arrested in Montenegro in March for using a fake Costa Rican passport, in his effort to get to Dubai via Podgorica. Both the United States and South Korea seek his extraditions, while he remains in custody on falsified passport charges. What does any of this have to do with the upcoming election? The current PM and leader of the minor United Reform Action party, Dritan Abazovic, saw an opening to attack the front-runner and took it:

During a June 8 press conference, Prime Minister Abazović told reporters he had received a handwritten note from Do Kwon detailing illegal political donations made to Milojko Spajic, from the Europe Now party, since 2018.

According to Yonhap, foreigners cannot make political donations or fund election campaigns, and all contributions must be reported to the Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Letters containing the same information were also sent to Prime Minister Abazović, Justice Minister Marko Kovac, and the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Prime Minister Abazović responded by calling for an investigation to determine the truth of the matter. He said:

“If it is true that Spici’s contact with Kwon Do-hyung is true in a situation where the United States and Korea are requesting extradition of Kwon Do-hyung, it is not good for Montenegro. We must not become a hotbed of global scammers.“

Spajic admitted working for Terraform Labs in the early days of the company in 2018 but denied receiving illegal political donations. He said:

“It’s a conspiracy theory fabricated to prevent ‘Europe now’ from winning the general election.”

Spajic served as Montenegro’s Finance Minister between December 2020 and May 2022, with Yonhap stating he was actively supporting the crypto industry during his time in office.

I can’t speak to the merits of these charges, or their likely political efficacy. We’ll know more a couple of days.