Europe Now, in ascending line, it starts as a favorite in the polls ahead of the historic DPS of former president Djukanovic
June 11 () –
Montenegrins vote this Sunday in parliamentary elections that polls say will mark a new episode in the political turn the country is taking towards a new generation of pro-European leaders led by the former finance minister and head of the Europe Now party, favorite in the surveys, Milojko Spajic.
Spajic, a 35-year-old credit analyst, co-founded the party with Jakov Milatovic, the country’s president for just a few weeks after breaking with the historical dominance of Milo Djukanovic thanks to a campaign program based on the fight against corruption and, above all, the acceleration of the accession plan to the European Union.
Europe Now has the support of 29 percent of voters, followed by Djukanovic’s Democratic Party of Socialists with 24 percent popular support, according to a poll conducted last month by the Center for Democracy and Human Rights. , or CEDEM, based in Podgorica and collected by Bloomberg.
These elections, if forecasts come true, will continue the turnaround that began in 2020, when Djukanovic’s DPS lost power for the first time since 1991 amid allegations of corruption and links to organized crime. The country, however, is still in full transition: the coalition that took power three years ago ended up collapsing and, two governments later, Montenegro finds itself under an acting Executive.
With nearly three-quarters of the electorate supporting Montenegro’s bid to join the 27-nation EU, major parties are promising voters to achieve that goal and also shore up a tourism-dependent economy that suffered one of Europe’s worst recessions for the pandemic.
Spajic has qualified his program with promises to increase wages and pensions, as well as to reduce the standard work week from 40 hours to 35 hours, similar to those that won Milatovic the presidential election.
After the defeat, Djukanovic resigned as head of the DPS, but remains a formidable force building on his legacy as restorer of Montenegro’s independence and guarantor of the country’s 2017 NATO membership despite resistance from Russia, in its day the largest investor in the country.
On the decline are right-wing groups that opposed NATO membership and prefer ties to the Kremlin. Their alliance, dubbed the Democratic Front, fell apart earlier this year, though at least two parties that were part of the coalition could get a combined 13% of the vote, according to the CEDEM poll.
Other key parties include United Action for Reform, led by acting Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic, and the Democrats led by former Speaker of Parliament Aleksa Becic, also pro-EU and anti-corruption, whose campaign promises action against Montenegro’s powerful drug cartels. , an effort that led to high-profile arrests of judges and senior law enforcement officials accused of collusion with cocaine smugglers.
