The Europe Now movement wins early elections

First modification: 06/12/2023 – 02:23

The PSE, which has pro-European Union politics and also wants closer ties with neighboring Serbia, failed to get enough votes to govern alone and will have to find partners in the 81-seat parliament to form a government.

“This is a great victory… we will talk to everyone who shares our values,” PSE leader Milojko Spajic told reporters at his party headquarters.

The pro-European Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and a group of small allied parties, which ruled Montenegro between 1990 and 2020, came in second with 23.7% of support, according to CEMI on the basis of 98.7% of the ballots counted in a representative sample of 400 polling stations throughout the country.

According to their own vote count, the DPS and its acting leader, Danijel Zivkovic, should have one more deputy than the PSE.

Of the 15 parties and alliances that have participated in the vote, nine will enter Parliament, according to the CEMI survey.

The state election commission is expected to announce the final results in the coming days.

The conservative alliance For the Future of Montenegroled by the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front, won 14.7%.

Another pro-European formation, formed by the Democratic Party and the URA movementof the outgoing prime minister, Dritan Abazovic, was fourth with 12.2%according to CEMI.

Aleksa Becic, leader of the Democratic Party, declared that the alliance with URA would be decisive in the coalition negotiations. “There will be no government without (our) movement,” he said.

Montenegrins hope that the new Administration will improve the country’s economy and infrastructure, and bring the NATO member state closer to joining the European Union.

The vote was the first in the former Yugoslav Republic of just over 620,000 since former DPS leader Milo Djukanovic lost the presidential election in April and resigned after 30 years in power.

According to CEMI, voter turnout at the close of the polls at 8 p.m. (local time) was unusually low, at 56.4%. Observers say few irregularities occurred.

The results are expected to end a political stalemate in which two governments that came to power following 2020 protests backed by the influential Serbian Orthodox Church collapsed following no-confidence votes.

Montenegro joined NATO in 2017, a year after a failed coup attempt that the administration at the time blamed on Russian agents and Serb nationalists. Moscow dismissed these claims as “absurd” and the Serbian government denied its involvement.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Montenegro, unlike Serbia, joined EU sanctions against Moscow, sent aid to Ukraine and expelled several Russian diplomats. The Kremlin has included Montenegro in its list of non-friendly states.

(Reuters)