Early parliamentary elections in Montenegro 2002

Preliminary Media Monitoring Report
(Pre-elections Campaign Before the Early Parliamentary Elections in Montenegro, October 20, 2002)

The media are an unavoidable part of every (pre)elections process, since the manner of their impact upon the political public and the electoral body determines, to a great extent (but not crucially), the democratic character of elections, in terms of “equality of opportunities” for ALL actors to present their programme options and attract, particularly, the reluctant and/or undecided part of voters.

During the pre-elections campaign for the early parliamentary elections in Montenegro, called for October 20, 2002, CeSID has monitored the coverage of, and reporting on the campaign of electoral actors in the media in Montenegro and (comparatively) in Serbia. Our goal, like in all previous cases, was to ascertain to what extent the media have been correctly informing the public about the course of campaign, have they observed the equal representation of all actors in the upcoming elections, i.e. to what extent have the particular actors been (un)favoured in distribution of publicity (un-biased), how much has the Montenegrin political public been “overheated” or “cooled” by consistent media reporting of political DISCOURSES utilised in the campaign activities, which have not NECESSARILY been the discourses of the monitored media (however, in theory, they might have been!).

The following media have been monitored:

• Printed media: Pobjeda, Vijesti, Dan and Glas Crnogoraca.
• Electronic media: Daily News at 19:30 TV CG 1, TV IN, TV Montena, Parliamentary Channel and TV Pink for Montenegro.

Comparatively, during the substantial part of the campaign, the following media have been (unsystematically) monitored in Serbia: BK Telefakt, YU Info, Studio B, RTV B92 (electronic media) and “Politika”, “Vecernje novosti”, “Blic”, “Glas javnosti” and “Danas” (printed media), regarding the reporting on pre-elections campaign in the (foreign?) “sister republic”.

Such a high “complexity” of monitoring of the media presentation of yet another (although the only) in the series of “historic” electoral orientations of the Montenegrin voters, has been multiply motivated: in the first place, however, by the (internal political) significance of the elections themselves (deepening of the political polarisation and the rift in political community); furthermore, by broader political significance (potential consequences of these elections for distribution of political power proportionally around several meta-political issues, overlapping the “local” framework of Montenegro and gaining the regional, or even supra-regional framework – the constitutional charter, status of the state (non)alliance, micro and meso regional stability); finally, under such lights and in the atmosphere of meta-political re-grouping of the media performance of political actors (in other words, the media as, once again, more or less voluntary servants of the daily, i.e. changeable, i.e. unprincipled politics, which takes the media’s freedom and responsibility away from ALMOST accomplished and UNTOUCHABLE principles of professionalism).

Since CeSID has systematically monitored all the three aspects mentioned, we are going to emphasise here only the latter one, in case of which it is possible to determine an obvious trend: from the step forward (April 2001 – Media monitoring before the early parliamentary elections, see: CeSID, About the Elections 6, 2001), towards the step backward (October 2002).

Where has such conclusion come from: a relative equilibrium from the year and a half ago has been significantly misbalanced (particularly in the printed media) by transfer of political power to the actual winners of the (un)expected personnel reshuffles in the media sphere, which have practically occurred right before the elections.

We have got the impression that the backbone of campaign has been founded upon the two topics:

1. Reforms (social and, particularly, economic);

2. Criminal allegations against the top state officials and the respective denials from the tops state officials.

In the campaign context, a far less space has been given to the issues dealing with the future relationship with Serbia.

The basis of the campaign has been the so-called negative campaign – reflected by severe criticism of the opposing faction. Basis political vocabulary has comprised hard talk, which in some headlines and reports has even turned into the hate speech.

Under such circumstances dictated by political actors, the media’s potentials have been severely restricted, even assuming they wanted to remain politically neutral and “objective”, which, bearing in mind the newly appointed management teams, they could have hardly pursued to the very end. As an example, let us take a look at the formerly significant state controlled media, the daily paper “Pobjeda”.

The paper has a column, “Elections 2001”, which contains all items related to the direct campaign (promotional rallies, statements about the elections, appearances of political leaders, etc.).

In the clearly marked and visibly framed sub-column within this one, the paper publishes the “Announcement of Promotional Rallies“. This announcement (unlike the paper “Glas Crnogoraca”, which in the similar column has been announcing exclusively the rallies of the “Together for Changes“ coalition and the Liberal Alliance-LS), has been announcing all promotional rallies. A slight inclination towards the side of the Liberal Alliance and the “Together for Changes” coalition is reflected by the fact that the promotional rallies of the “Democratic List for European Montenegro – Milo Djukanovic” are generally placed bellow the announcements of promotional rallies of other political actors – occasionally, even the marginal ones like the “Patriotic Coalition for Yugoslavia” and the “Socialist Party of Yugoslavia with Communists for Preservation for Yugoslavia” are better placed than the presently ruling DPS and SDP.

The column headlines occasionally reflect the benevolence towards the Liberal Alliance and “Together for Changes”. The headlines bearing statements criticising the authorities are dominant (both by the placement and the font size). These are some examples:

• “We Shall Dispatch The Last Dictatorship In Europe To The Opposition” – promotional rally of ”Together for Changes”, October 12;
• “Montenegro – Destination For Mobsters”, promotional rally of ”Together for Changes”, October 11;
• “Absolutist Regime Impersonated In One Man”, - promotional rally of ”Together for Changes”, October 9.

The electronic media have acted somehow differently. Considering the fact that the majority of political and pre-elections contents have been covered by the “Parliamentary Channel”, (practically, the facts only, by visual and audio coverage of actors), the other media (including the Daily News at 19:30 of TV Crne Gore) have, to a significant extent, put these contents to the margins. In the opinion of our monitors, from the professional point of view, the most complete presentations have been given by TV IN, whereas they have found somehow astounding the “self-placement to margins” of the TV Montena, which has significantly reduced its news programme (we have monitored the News at 19:00 hours).

The parallel monitoring of the behaviour of media in Serbia has been quite interesting. If in case of the campaign for the previously held local elections, one could have got the impression that “Alice (almost) did not live here any more”, the present campaign was granted a more substantial publicity, although, once again not by the main electronic media. The forerunners in reporting were the BKTV (BK Telefakt) and the “YU-Info”, among the electronic media, and “Politika” and “Vecernje novosti” among the printed media. “Politika” was dominated by commented (and quite partial) reports written by the correspondent of this paper, while “Vecernje novosti” tried to maintain the “objectivism” and “factualism”.

The question of foundation of political environment and the manner of political speech, which the media alone could not be held responsible for, has derived as the main problem from the present campaign. It is worth quoting a bitter judgement of one local analyst: “My impression is: the media are just like the politicians, or, probably, looking at politicians we might say that the media are fairly good.”