Montenegro’s ethnic Albanian parties have split allegiances ahead of this weekend’s presidential poll, with a large faction ending a decade of support for the current leadership over issues like Kosovo.
Most leaders of the key minority in Tuzi, a straggly town in the Malesija region near Albania, say that the ruling party of Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic can no longer count on their previous support base.
“If Filip Vujanovic doesn’t win [the election] in Malesija, he won’t win at the state level,” said Nikola Camaj, the speaker of the region’s parliament.
Vujanovic, of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), is tipped for re-election in tomorrow’s first round, but the DPS is concerned about the outcome of a potential runoff, party sources said.
The incumbent has courted Malesija voters during campaigning, including a visit this week to Tuzi, half-way between the capital Podgorica and the Albanian border.
All but one of the six parties representing Montenegro’s Albanians — who account for 7 percent of the tiny Balkan state’s 650,000 population – have decided not to back Vujanovic.
“For the first time, the Albanian Alternative and Forca of Ulcinj [parties] have come out with a call for their political subjects not to support the current president,” said Smail Maliq Cunmulaj, a leader of the Alternative.
“The motive behind that is that this leadership, which always had the unreserved support of the Albanian population, has let us down for a long time over several issues,” Cunmulaj said.
LACKING RECOGNITION
Topping their growing list of complaints is Montenegro’s failure so far to recognize the independence of Kosovo, whose ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February.
There was “no need for Montenegro to wait too long” to recognize Kosovo, Cunmulaj said, adding that his ethnic group would “exert pressure” on the government to do so.
But Ferhat Dinosha, leader of the Democratic Union of Albanians (DUA), said Montenegro should be able to take its time in acknowledging Kosovo.
“Montenegro doesn’t have to hurry to recognize Kosovo,” Dinosha said.
“It’s clear that Montenegro aspires to Euro-Atlantic integration and will recognize Kosovo’s independence on that road,” he said.
Recognition of Kosocar independence could come some time after Serbia’s May 11 general elections, he said.
Dinosha’s DUA is the sole ethnic Albanian party to have maintained support for Vujanovic, who could face a tough challenge if he fails to win 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
In such a scenario, opposition voters would be expected to unite and rally behind one of his challengers in a second round of voting scheduled on April 20.
But the DUA’s rivals have other gripes about Montenegro’s leadership. He has been criticized for a broken promise to grant self-rule to Malesija, where ethnic Albanians form a majority of around 12,000.
BROKEN PROMISES?
“They didn’t fulfill their promise” of giving Tuzi the status of a municipality, Cunmulaj said.
Another concern was the arrest in Tuzi of a group of ethnic Albanians on terrorist charges on Sept. 9, 2006.
This came a day before the first legislative elections after Montenegro won independence three months earlier.
“What occurred on September 9 ... Malesija will never forgive nor forget,” the Alternative leader said, accusing police of torturing the 14 now being tried for trying to provoke ethnic unrest.
Cunmulaj said his and the Forca party were also riled by the decision to privatize land at Velika Plaza, a 13km-long beach near the southeastern Albanian-populated town of Ulcinj.
Local ethnic Albanians claim ownership of the land, which has become lucrative amid a tourism boom after independence.
But Dinosha said that regardless of such issues, the region’s ethnic Albanians owed a debt of gratitude to the Montenegro leadership over its humanitarian response at the end of the Kosovo war in 1999.
“Considering that the same people that accepted the Albanian refugees during the war in Kosovo are still in power in Montenegro, it gives us hope that Montenegro will want to have good relations with ... Kosovo,” Dinosha said.
“If Kosovo remains stable, if it strengthens its stability, that will be a good guarantee of the stability of the surroundings. I don’t seen any kind of dangers for Montenegro from Albanians,” he said.
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