Montenegrin Parties and the Gemino Curse. Through Balkan Politics with Harry Potter, Part 1

(

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1), Harry, Hermine and Ron enter the vault of the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange to find a Horcrux, the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff. The vault was, however, protected by the Gemino spell, which duplicates objects when touched, in this case the treasures multiplied so frequently that they became mountains that nearly crushed the heroes.

The Gemino spell has been a curse for opposition political parties in some countries of the Balkan. Nowhere is this more visible than in Montenegro, which is holding parliamentary election on 16 October. The elections are being contested by 17 electoral lists. The two main opposition lists are in fact coalitions: The Democratic Front includes a baffling 10 parties, the Coalition Key 3 parties. In addition, there  are 8(!) Albanian parties competing (on three lists composed of 1, 3 and 4 parties respectively), 8 other parties, plus 3 appealing to Bosniak and Croat voters.Here is the list of your choices, if you are a Montenegro voters:

• Democratic Party of Socialists
• Social Democratic Party
• Democrats
• Socialdemocrats
• Alternative Montenegro
• Positive Montenegro
• Coalition Key:
  • Democratic Alliance
  • Socialist People’s Party
  • United Reform Action
• Serb Party
• Party of Pensioners, Invalids and Social Justice
• Party of Serb Radicals
• Croatian Civic Initiative
• Bosniak Democratic Community
• Bosniak Party
• Democratic Front
  • New Serb Democracy
  • Movement for Changes
  • Democratic People’s Party
  • Workers Party
  • Democratic Serb Party
  • Movement for Pljevlja
  • Serb Radical Party
  • Yugoslav Communist Party
  • Party of United Pensioners and Invalids
  • Resistance to Hopelessness
• Democratic Alliance of Albanians
• Decisive Albanians:
  • Democratic Union of Albanians
  • Albanian Alternative
  • New Democratic Power-Forca
• Albanian Coalition
  • Democratic Party
  • Civic Initiative
  • Democratic Alliance
  • Civil Movement Perspective

Some are opposition groups, some might be either opposition or join forces with the ruling DPS, depending on the outcome of the elections. Altogether 32 parties and groups are competing for power (or one party per 16,525 voters). There is nothing new to having many parties contending, it seems likely that more than 20 parties will be represented in the next parliament. This is a long way from the early 2000s, when the number of parliamentary parties was a third of that.

The dominance of the ruling DPS has been the reason for the Gemino spell to create dozens of parties which are indistinguishable copies of one another. After every failed effort to break the dominance of Djukanović and his DPS, the opposition parties multiply. The extreme fragmentation helps the ruling party to stay in power, as it not only undermines the credibility of the alternative, but also creates a large pool of potential partners that can be co-opted  in a future government. This time, the fragmentation might have also some positive side-effects. It is clear to even the most optimistic opposition party leaders that they will not win a sufficiently large majority alone. Thus, not only have two large opposition blocks crystallized, but it also led to an agreement on post-election cooperation among the large opposition groups.

The Gemino spell is not unique to Montenegro, but rather a broader phenomena when the main function of parties is less about program and more about access to power, leadership of a party is central to power and exclusion from power is denying parties their main raison d’etre. The best example is the Democratic Party in Serbia which has fragmented or rather duplicated into dozens of copies. Of the 17 parliamentary clubs in the current Serbian parliament, 5 are off-springs of the original Democratic Party, Democratic Party of Serbia, Liberal Democratic Party, New Party, and the Socialdemocratic Party, not to mention some extra-parliamentary off-shoots (Left of Serbia), and currently ongoing processes of the Gemino spell inside the DSS and to a lesser degree the DS. So, while it is certainly not true that the Balkans produces more history that it can consume, some countries produce more parties than they can consume and Gemino spell will remain a curse as long as power is centralized in the state and the parties where every intra-party conflict and lost election triggers a new iteration of the curse.

(This is the first post with Harry Potter through Balkan politics. More to follow. If you have a favorite curse, character or scene from Harry Potter that might fit nicely, let me know)