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Photo: Risto Bozovic
Montenegrin President Milo Dukanović voted at an electoral college in the capital, Podgorica.
Montenegro’s voters have voted who will continue to lead the country and, according to one forecast, it looks like there will be a very even race between the victorious western-oriented ruling party DPS and a pro-Serbian opposition looking east.
Montenegro’s President Milo Dukanović has led the country on several occasions, both as prime minister and president, since the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
During his nearly 30 years in power, he has led the country in a westward direction, primarily pushing for independence from Serbia in 2006 and joining the 2017 NATO Western Defense Alliance.
West or East?
In Sunday’s elections, his social democratic party DPS was challenged by a right-wing opposition that wants to strengthen ties with Serbia and Russia.
According to a forecast by the independent electoral observation organization Cemi, which is based on 70 percent of the votes counted at a selection of polling stations, the election will be very close. The ruling DPS party gets 34.7 percent of the vote, while the pro-Serbian opposition gets 33.1 percent, according to the forecast.
When 49 percent of the votes in Cemi’s sample were counted, Fred is our nation, an alliance of parties oriented to the center and west, in third place with 12.6 percent, Reuters reports.
Conflict with the church
So far, the DPS has never lost an election and is inclined to win, but the party now risks losing its majority in parliament. The conflict between the government and the Serbian Orthodox Church could be in the barrel of power, following a new law last year that could make hundreds of monasteries state property.
It seems that the turnout will be higher than four years ago. An hour before the polls closed at 8 p.m. Sunday night, turnout was 75 percent, compared to 71 percent at the same time in the 2016 elections, according to Cemi.
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