TransConflict is pleased to announce that, every Friday, it will be presenting extracts from ‘Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars’ Initiative (Second Edition)’. Charles Ingrao, the Initiative’s director, explains its aims and approach. 

A change of the ossified governing structures and one-party control over the entire state remains a conditio sine qua non for genuine democratization of the Montenegrin polity and society.

With mayoral elections approaching on July 19th, splits between the two old governing coalition partners – the predominant Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – demonstrate that the stakes are high in Montenegro’s political party dynamics.

Eagerly awaited results from Montenegro’s April 2011 Census indicate that citizens are not prepared to fit neatly into the ‘boxes’ that nationalist social engineering has prepared for them.

Montenegro’s first five years of independence have seen an interesting mix of change, continuity and consolidation. Progress has been significant, but there is still work to be done before the country becomes an EU member-state.

Recent events, particularly a municipal-level disagreement between the two ruling parties and the resignation of prime minister Đukanović, are indicative of the new elements at play in Montenegrin politics.

As speculation intensifies that Montenegro’s prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, will retire from politics relatively soon, the plotting and jostling for power within the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) has begun in earnest.

While Djukanovic’s ruling party has claimed victory, the opposition seems likely to be galvanised by their relatively strong showing in the capital and elsewhere.

Whilst Montenegro continues to make visible progress towards achieving its key foreign policy priorities, further steps are required to ensure that its internal reform processes maintain a similar pace