Presidential elections in Montenegro: Milo Đukanović’s last lap / Montenegro / Areas / Home

Milo Đukanović looked like he was having a bad day when he spoke at his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) headquarters just before 11pm on Sunday. With 35% of the vote, he has little chance of winning the April 2 runoff against Evropa Sad (Europe Now) candidate Jakov Milatović, who unexpectedly won 29% of the vote.

Đukanović dreamed of a second round against the pro-Serb candidate of the Democratic Front (DF), the radical Andrija Mandić, who would have difficulty attracting the votes of moderate voters, even if they were hostile to Milo Đukanović. In recent weeks, rumors of a secret agreement between Milo Đukanović and Andrija Mandić had even circulated in Montenegro. True or not, this first round is a clear defeat not only for Đukanović but also for Belgrade, which had bet heavily on Mandić. The latter has to settle for a mediocre result of 19%, despite having tried – during the electoral campaign – to moderate his positions.

“The DPS and the pro-Serbian Democratic Front are politically marginalized. For the first time in the history of Montenegro, it is the forces that do not put national identification at the forefront that are at the center of the political game, be it Europe Now or Aleksa Bečić’s Democrats who, together, collected 40% of the votes”, analyzes Dejan Mijović, of the citizen movement URA.

These two candidates have used all means to try to convince the undecided, multiplying phone calls and even financial offers. In the city of Pljevlja, in northern Montenegro, DPS activists went around the neighborhoods on Saturday evening offering 50 euros in exchange for the promise of a vote in favor of Milo Đukanović, targeting in particular the voters of the Bosnian community.

These same national minorities, traditionally in favor of the DPS, to have “shunned” the candidate Đukanović: the turnout was lower than the national average in all the municipalities in which they live, among these for example Gusinje, Petnjica or Ulcinj. In view of the second round, Milo Đukanović could try to mobilize the diaspora, but this is unlikely to allow him to reverse the current trend.

In his speech on Sunday evening, Jakov Milatović wanted to thank “all the political forces, the independent media, civil society organizations and intellectuals who fought for a better Montenegro”. “This is the victory of those who have struggled for 30 years, who have been discriminated against, who have suffered from hunger. This is the victory of all Montenegro, which has been awaited for generations”, he added, asking that Milo Đukanović be sent permanently to retirement on April 2.

Gathered in an apartment in Podgorica, some of those intellectuals and journalists who for years have embodied the “other Montenegro” greeted these words with emotion, toasting the “free Montenegro”, which will soon be freed from the “Đukanović octopus” after three years of chaotic transition since the August 30, 2020 election, which had pushed the DPS into opposition.

Jakov Milatović enters the second round in the position of big favorite, as both the candidate of the Democrats Aleksa Bečić (11%) and the candidate of the Democratic Front (DF) Andrija Mandić (19%) have already explicitly expressed their support. The candidates of the political forces that won the parliamentary elections of 30 August 2020 therefore total 60% of the votes and, despite the strong differences between them, they are all well determined to move on with Đukanović.

Furthermore, the victory of Europa Ora in the municipal elections of Podgorica on 23 October, blocked by the appeals presented by the DPS, was recognized as valid last Friday by the Constitutional Court, as a result of which Milo Đukanović’s party also loses control of the capital. After all, in the first round of the presidential elections, Jakov Milatović overtook Milo Đukanović in Podgorica, as well as in Nikšić and Danilovgrad.

Another “big casualty” of this first round, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party Draginja Vuksanović Stanković, who had led a campaign based on a virulent Montenegrin nationalism, registered a real counter-performance, obtaining only 3% of the votes against the 8% of the last presidential election, in 2018. He announced his resignation from all political functions held on Sunday evening.

For the first time in a long time, no column of cars with Montenegrin or Serbian flags wandered through the streets of Podgorica on Sunday evening: voters seem decidedly tired of the identity disputes over which Milo Đukanović never stopped playing during his 32 years of political career.

blog comments powered by