New Leaks Embarrass Montenegro Ruling Party

The opposition daily Dan on Wednesday published a new transcript from the session of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, held ahead of the October 2012 general election.

It contained more revealing statements from party officials, suggesting they resorted to controversial tactics to keep themselves in power.

At the session, Milo Djukanovic, DPS leader, and Radivoje Nikcevic, an official, called for activists to curb opposition influence within the trade union at a steel mill factory in Niksic, which was sold to Turkey's Toscelik company in May 2012.

The union there was led by Janko Vucinic, an organizer of the protests that shook Montenegro in 2012 and now an MP of the largest opposition formation, the Democratic Front.

“We are trying now to form a trade union. Everything we are doing these days is to help our people eliminate the trade union of Janko Vucinic,” Nikcevic said at the session.

The transcript also suggested that party officials were considering ways to encourage heads of public enterprises to ensure votes for the DPS, and ways to obtain money to bring back more than 2,000 voters living abroad.

The daily newspaper called the latest transcript fresh evidence that “the leadership of the DPS ahead of the last parliamentary election, at the session closed to the public, planned the abuse of state resources... the employment of people who join the party and bringing voters from abroad”.

The affair of the leaks started when Dan on February 15 first published transcripts from two party sessions last year in which DPS officials appeared to promise jobs and loans to party supporters.

DPS officials involved in the leaks have denied any wrongdoing, calling for the records of the sessions to be analysed more closely.

Milo Djukanovic, the Prime Minister, on Tuesday described the affair as a “tragi-comic attempt to re-run Watergate”, referring to the famous leaks that brought down US President Richard Nixon.