Belgrade, 11 June 2023 (dpa/MIA) – Montenegrins began voting on Sunday in early parliamentary elections after the ousting in April of long-ruling pro-Western president Milo Djukanovic, with 540,000 voters eligible to cast their ballots.

The new Europe Now! movement with a modernizing agenda goes into the elections as favourite. The party backs accession to the European Union, but is also seen as leaning towards neighbouring Serbia.

According to opinion polls, an absolute majority for the party is unlikely however, and its leading candidate, Milojko Spajic, will need partners for a coalition.

The Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) are seen as likely to come second in the elections. Djukanovic stood down as party leader after losing the presidential elections.  

Europe Now! is considered likely to look elsewhere for coalition partners.

Third-placed in the opinion polls is the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front (DF), which is campaigning under the name "For the Future of Montenegro." How the grouping could contribute to a new coalition remains unclear.

Djukanovic had dominated the Balkan country's politics since the breakup of Yugoslavia, first taking office as prime minister in 1991 and then serving as president until the spring of this year.

He took Montenegro to independence in 2006 and into NATO in 2017. The country of some 600,000 has been in accession talks with the EU since 2012.

Djukanovic's grip on the country's politics began to slip in 2020, when his DPS and its partners lost their parliamentary majority for the first time. But the subsequent largely pro-Serbian government that followed turned out to be unstable, leading to Sunday's early elections.

Photo: MIA archive