The campaign for the parliamentary elections, which will be held on June 11, is unconvincing and insufficiently informative, said the CEO of the Centre for Monitoring and Research, Ana Nenezic, stating that megalomaniacal promises that have no basis in reality dominate.

Nenezic said that the key political players decided to base their campaigns on a leader-centric approach, enriched with populist messages and without mutual attacks, in the hope that this would open a wider space for post-election cooperation.

"The leader of a political party or coalition stands in the foreground and is used as the main political brand. It is at the center of all political messages, and the campaign often boils down to the personalization of politics," Nenezic told the MINA agency.

As she stated, this type of campaign certainly attracts attention on the Montenegrin political market.

Nenezic explained that without a prepared plan and strategic vision, without concrete political programs and innovative ideas, those campaigns tend to be self-referential and to promote the leader for the leader's sake, and not for the goals they are trying to achieve.

"It is especially worrying when we talk about the parliamentary elections, where the citizens elect 81 representatives who will represent them in the next four years, and who they don't even have the opportunity to meet," says Nenezic.

According to her, the insistence on this type of campaign additionally confirms the thesis of a partitocratic organization in the Montenegrin political system, because citizens do not elect their representatives, but parties and coalitions do.

"This approach creates a closed circle of intertwined interests, and the loyalty of future MPs goes to the leaders of the political parties on whom their political future depends, instead of to the citizens whose interests they should represent," Nenezic said.

She pointed out that the lack of content of the campaign is reflected in the invisibility of persons from party lists, most of whom are unknown to the general public.

Nenezic stressed that these new actors will be the ones who will shape the political and social system in the future, making key political decisions on behalf of the citizens.

"Exactly because of this, we expected that the parties and coalitions would use this opportunity to better present the candidates to the wider Montenegrin public, but what we got was the reaffirmation of the leader through outdated communication methods," said Nenezic.

As she said, these are methods such as billboards with smiling faces and optimistic views into the distance, repetitive slogans that have lost their purpose due to excessive use, and video materials "reminiscent of trailers for bad action movies, with an emphasis on the glorification of the poster's holders."

Nenezic stated that the pre-election communication was dominated by economic topics, which was expected given the growing popularity of the Europe Now Movement (PES), which predominantly bases its political offer on economic issues.

She believes that most other parties are adapting to it, believing that it is a recipe that can bring them an increase in popularity and a higher percentage of support.

"However, the lack of vision and the focus on economic populist rhetoric have led to a bizarre situation of bidding which party can offer higher salaries and pensions, without concrete plans and realistic methods for realizing those promises," said Nenezic.

It is true, as she said, that the campaign has largely moved away from identity issues.

"But that resulted in the dominance of often megalomaniacal promises that have no foundation in real politics," said Nenezic.

She said that such promises, unfounded in reality, can drag the state and society into a period of uncertainty and crisis, after it becomes clear that they cannot be fulfilled.

"That is why it is important that citizens clearly hear not only what is planned, but also how it is planned to be realized, so that they can assess its reality and credibility, that is, they can make an informed decision," Nenezic added.

According to her, it is very worrying that those purely populist offers are not supported by election programs, nor by a clear plan to fulfill the promises.

Nenezic believes that there is a real danger that the political space will remain trapped between identity issues and megalomaniacal promises, while truly relevant topics remain neglected.

She said that, looking at the upcoming elections as a political market where different offers are presented, it is not actually known what will be offered after the short campaign so far.

Nenezic stated that the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) does not have a clear campaign or offer.

"They are almost invisible, which makes it difficult to assess what this coalition offers or how it plans to achieve its goals," Nenezic said, adding that she believes that the internal party crisis is clearly reflected in the campaign itself.

On the other hand, as she said, the coalition of the Civic Movement URA and the Democrats, in its desire to position itself as a key factor in the fight against corruption and organized crime, uses theatrical methods such as the "Bus of Courage" and the "Hand of Justice", which can lead to trivialization their political stance.

Nenezić pointed out that their campaign is still the most visible and expensive, present on all platforms of traditional and modern communication channels, and reaching a large number of voters.

"With the advantages of the official campaign, which they use a lot, it can give certain results," Nenezic believes.

She stated that PES made a good judgment that they do not need an intensive campaign, but controlled communication through carefully designed messages, so as not to risk the advantage they now have.

"Opening up space for potentially contentious issues such as foreign policy positions, relationship to national issues, internal party issues, and similar topics are skilfully avoided," said Nenezic.

As she said, PES benefits from the mild and uncritical attitude of their political competitors and potential post-election partners.

Those entities, according to Nenezic, in the hope that they will have an open space for cooperation after the election, do not attack PES, but allow them to go through the campaign process completely relaxed, thereby depriving the citizens of those answers that may be important when making a decision.

Nenezic, speaking about the coalition of the Democratic People's Party, the New Serbian Democracy and the Workers' Party, said that their expression was expectedly radical, perhaps the most radical compared to all previous campaigns.

As she said, in fear of losing voters at the expense of Europe now, but also the appearance of competition in the form of new parties that dominantly appeal to the pro-Serbian electorate, they engage in conscious rhetorical provoking of other ethno-national groups in Montenegro.

"With the expectation that by strengthening the feelings of threat among the pro-Serbian electorate, they could increase their percentages," Nenezic added.

She stated that, due to a couple of potential percentages, that coalition is at the same time moving away from any possibility of coalition with other parties after the elections.

Nenezic said that smaller parties and groups of citizens, despite their often fresh and innovative ideas, face serious obstacles in achieving greater visibility.

According to Nenezic, the reason for this is often the lack of adequate resources for spreading their messages, but also the inadequate platforms available to them for presenting their programs, which puts them in an unequal position.

"In support of this is the outdated and unwatchable concept of the debate on the RTCG public service, which has no real value for the new smaller parties," Nenezic believes.

She said that the official campaign is, unfortunately, a part of every political campaign in Montenegro, since the introduction of multi-party system, until today.

Nenezic pointed out that it is also clear that the election laws were written in such a way as to leave room for such behavior not to be adequately sanctioned, even though it gives an inappropriate institutional advantage to parties that campaign from positions of power.

She emphasized that, bearing in mind that the loudest critics of the misuse of state resources and other forms of institutional advantage during the DPS rule were precisely those who make up the government today, the worrying ease with which they resorted to the same mechanisms and practices.

"With identical explanations that we heard from the previous government for decades and condemned together," Nenezic added.

As she said, now representatives of the civil sector, who continue to criticize such negative phenomena on principle, have become open enemies, instead of former desirable partners.

According to Nenezic, the official campaign is a bad practice that must be stopped.

"But until we have a political majority that is ready to enter into the process of reforming electoral laws, such phenomena cannot be stopped, so it remains to critically point to them and to publicly condemn all attempts to abuse public, that is, our resources, for private party interests", concluded Nenezic.