Montenegrin president-elect Jakov Milatović, influential europe now movement leader milojko spajić and Montenegrin PM Dritan Abazović are just “children of fortune”. They have no particular education or experience relevant to the running of a state
There is no special system of education to mould a political leader of any ideology, including liberal democratic. Quite simply, every political leader is born. This is an individual who has personal characteristics that are desirable for leadership: decisiveness, tenacity, steadfastness, rationality, courage, special communication prowess, top class organisational, rigour in evaluating colleagues, top class powers of manipulation, and sometimes also brutality, a penchant for risk and, in particular, the power to recognise a juncture when to enter the historical scene. It is simultaneously essential for them to have received a top education in the contemporary political and media context and to be fundamentally acquainted with modern times. And those are all matters of individual achievements and accomplishments. It is about a personal decision and commitment.
A second thing linked to changes in political leadership is the power to appear as being relevant to international players, at least at the initial level of mutual trust. The third circumstance related to such change is the internal implosion of the regime being changed and the public having had its fill of the current ruling elites. This third circumstance is the most important and is also unpredictable.
There is no special system of education to mould a political leader of any ideology, including liberal democratic. Quite simply, every political leader is born
If we are referring specifically to the changes that have occurred in Montenegro, the scenario is clear. Citizens were massively opposed to Đukanović. Young new leaders gained a historic chance because Đukanović had been irrevocably disintegrating politically since August 2020. The conflict with the Serbian Orthodox Church was the last straw. It mobilised both Serbs and Montenegrins who had accumulated a sense of dissatisfaction over many years due to repression, corruption and social differences, accompanied by humiliations like Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo and shameless apologies to Croats and Bosniaks for the wars of the ‘90s. All these anomalies were ascribed to Đukanović.
Montenegrin President-elect Jakov Milatović, influential Europe Now Movement leader Milojko Spajić and Montenegrin PM Dritan Abazović are just “children of fortune”, to paraphrase Napoleon.
They have no particular education or experience relevant to the running of a state, nor does such a thing exist, unless learning to work in a political administration counts as political education, which is a characteristic of the French political education milieu. These are self-made leaders who received their formal schooling at various political schools in the West, and the epilogue of that education is a general conception of democracy, the market and a set of accompanying rhetorical figures which they utilise to declare themselves as being liberals and democrats. All three leaders have the responsibility and the political and historical task of turning that small and disreputable country into a decent state. They are not guaranteed to succeed, but the chance exists.
