Andrija Mandiq is the new Speaker of the Parliament of Montenegro and, at the same time, a member of the Council for Defense and Security, which commands the Army of Montenegro.
He is the leader of the Serbian New Democracy – a member of the pro-Serb and pro-Russian Democratic Front (DF) – which has recently been renamed the coalition For the Future of Montenegro. The foreign policy priorities of Mandić's party are the lifting of sanctions against Russia and the withdrawal of recognition of Kosovo's independence.
She is also an opponent of Montenegro's membership in NATO. In regional politics, Mandić has extremely close relations with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, and with the president of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik.
He also denies the genocide in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys during the 1990s war. It is also close to the ideology of the Chetnik movement, which collaborated with Hitler's Germany in World War II.
He has had the symbolic title of Chetnik duke since 2007. He has been a deputy in the Parliament of Montenegro for two decades now. He was elected head of this institution with ... votes. Mandiq's election is part of a broader power-sharing package. According to the agreement of the prime minister, Millojko Spaijic, with the new majority, the Democratic Front parties will support his minority Government in Parliament and, at the end of next year, will officially become part of it.
Official Washington has warned and expressed concern several times that the new Government consists of parties and leaders who are actively against Euro-Atlantic values. A similar position has been expressed in some cases by European institutions.
Mandić sees Putin as his president
In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Belgrade with Andrija Mandić and another leader of the Democratic Front, Milan Knezhević, who were then in the opposition. "Mandić and Knezhević conveyed to the president of Russia the greetings of the Serbian people in Montenegro and emphasized that the majority of Montenegro perceives him as their president", the Democratic Front said at the time.
According to that announcement, Putin told them that they are "real heroes" and that they should "endure." Mandić and Knezhević are accused of planning a "coup" on election day in Montenegro in 2016, along with Russian service members Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov, as well as eight other Serbian nationals.
The case is related to efforts to prevent Montenegro's membership in NATO. With the verdict of the first instance, in May of that year, they were sentenced to five years in prison. The Court of Appeal rejected the decision and took the case to a new trial. Mandić and Knezhević have denied the accusations, claiming that it is a politically staged process. A source from the US administration confirmed in 2022 that their Democratic Front was financed by Russia during the election campaign in 2016. /Rel