Montenegro - 2012 Election - Parliament

The parliament is Montenegro's lawmaking body. Parliament has 81 members elected in general elections. The governing DPS/SDP/BS/HGI coalition had 48 members of parliament, followed by the SNP (16 seats), NOVA (8), the PzP (5), DUA (one), FORCA (one), Albanian List coalition (composed of the Democratic Alliance in Montenegro and the Albanian Alternative) (one), and the Albanian Coalition-Perspektiva (composed of Party of Democratic Unity of Albanians and a group of citizens represented by Amir Hollaj) (one).

Although no longer an incumbent as of December 21, 2010, Milo Ðukanovic remained the president of the ruling DPS party. President Vujanovic nominated for the vacant position Igor Luksic, a DPS member who had served as the minister of finance since 2004 but who was just 34 years old. The Montenegrin parliament approved Luksic on December 29, 2010, making him the youngest head of government in the world.

On 14 October 2012 Montenegro's ruling coalition won the most votes in the parliamentary election. An unofficial tally by CEMI, a non-government election monitoring group, showed the center-left Democratic Party of Socialists, led by veteran politician Milo Djukanovic, won 46 percent of the vote. That gave them 39 out of 81 seats in the future parliament with 95 percent of the votes counted, forcing the DPS to turn to deputies for ethnic minorities to secure a majority. The Democratic Front, the main opposition bloc, took only 21 percent of the vote, or 20 seats, followed by the pro-Serb Socialist People's Party with 10.5 percent, or nine seats. The win for DPS extended their 20-year hold on power in the former Yugoslav republic.

The European Montenegro coalition (Democratic Party of Socialists – DPS, Social Democratic Party – SDP and Liberal Party – LP), together with ethnic minority parties, Bosniak Party – BS, Croatian Civic Initiative – HGI and ethnic Albanian parties (FORCA and DP) held 45 seats in the 81-seat Parliament. As for the opposition, the Democratic Front (DF) held 20, Socialist People’s Party (SNP) nine, and Positive Montenegro (PCG) seven seats.

The Montenegrin Government under Prime Minister Milo Ðukanovic was voted in on 04 December 2012, following the parliamentary elections. The new Prime Minister performed a substantial reshuffle of his predecessor’s Cabinet. Instead of three, there were four Deputy Prime Ministers, and several new ministers have been appointed. The number of the ministries, 16, remained intact. The Government is backed by 45 out of 81 MPs. It is a coalition government consisting of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Liberal Party (LP), Bosniak Party (BS), Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI), and ethnic Albanian parties (FORCA and DP).