Image: SAVO PRELEVIC (APA/AFP/SAVO PRELEVIC)
According to the NGO CEMI, Djukanovic got 35.20 percent on Monday, missing the 50 percent mark that would have been required for an election in the first round. In the run-off election on April 2, his opponent will be the pro-European economist Jakov Milatovic.
According to the Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI), he received 29.20 percent of the votes. He was ahead of the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian politician Andrija Mandic, who favored closer ties between the NATO state and neighboring Serbia and Russia, and received 19.3 percent. Voter turnout was almost 63 percent.
Runoff election decides on Djukanovic’s political survival
The run-off election on April 2 will decide whether Djukanovic will survive politically. Born in 1986, Milatovic is said to have a good chance of beating him. “Europe now!” presents itself as modern and reform-oriented. But it is also considered to be close to the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is controlled from Belgrade. Milatovic was Minister of Economy in the short-lived pro-Serbian government (December 2020 to April 2022).
Montenegro, with its approximately 620,000 inhabitants, is largely dependent on tourism income. The country is one of the six Western Balkan countries that want to join the EU and its currency is the euro. The population is divided: while members of one population group see themselves as Montenegrins, others see themselves as Serbs and reject the independence declared in 2006 from the successor state of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro. In 2017, Montenegro joined NATO after an attempted coup a year earlier. The government blamed Russian agents and Serbian nationalists. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Montenegro joined EU sanctions against Moscow. The Kremlin has therefore put the country on its list of unfriendly states.
Djukanovic has held the highest political offices in Montenegro for decades. His opponents accuse him and his centre-left DPS party of corruption and links to organized crime. The President and the DPS reject this.
Montenegro has been in a political crisis for a long time. There were repeated votes of no confidence and arguments between the President and MPs. Djukanovic only dissolved parliament on Thursday and called early parliamentary elections for June 11.
Source: Nachrichten
