Montenegro - 2023 Election - President
Montenegrins went to the polls on Sunday, 19 March 2023, to vote for President. Anti-corruption and the country’s geopolitical orientation are emerging as key campaign issues, though the rhetoric also focused on personalities and appeals to national identity. Milo Djukanovic has a long habit of ignoring his political opponents. For three decades, it mostly worked for him. Serving as prime minister six times and president twice, the chameleonic 61-year-old has singularly dominated Montenegrin politics. A consummate machine politician, he has been blessed by having an incompetent and divided opposition. His core objective had been to see Montenegro become a member of both NATO and the EU.
But this time, in the first national election since pro-Serbian parties and their fractious coalition defeated his parliamentary allies two and a half years ago, Djukanovic's challengers for a five-year term as president had his attention. Djukanovic called them "charlatans" and "dukes" and included a "titled" Chetnik, a historical swipe at a veteran Serbian nationalist's fealty to Montenegrin statehood. The governments of the past two and a half years "served" the Serbian Orthodox Church and "big-state nationalism," he charged.
Djukanovic's populist Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), the successor to the Yugoslav-era Communists, governed continuously from 1991 to 2020 and was dogged by accusations of corruption, nepotism, and ties to organized crime. The biggest weakness of the government during this 30-year period is that they didn't approach the construction of strong and independent institutions more decisively. Determined to unseat Djukanovic's party, a coalition led by pro-Serbian groups with support from the Serbian Orthodox Church defeated the DPS in August 2020 elections.
On 16 January 2023, the Speaker of the Parliament (Skupština), in keeping with the legally mandated timeline, called a presidential election for 19 March. The president is elected in a single nationwide constituency for a five-year term. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive more than 50 per cent of the valid votes cast. Otherwise, a second round is held two weeks later between the two candidates with the highest number of votes, and the candidate who obtains the largest number of votes cast is elected.
The election took place in a highly polarized environment as well as during an ongoing institutional and political crisis. In September 2022, the President and the majority in the parliament accused each other of breaching the Constitution and threatened to dismiss each other by invoking constitutionally available tools. In October 2022, municipal elections were held in 14 of the 25 Municipalities, but results are still pending in four of them. Since September 2022, the Constitutional Court has lacked the quorum necessary to be operational and make decisions. Following lengthy negotiations and a political agreement, on 27 February, the parliament voted to fill three out of the four vacancies in the court, providing the Court with a quorum. All three newly appointed judges are women.
Voting rights are granted to all citizens 18 or older, provided they have a permanent residence in Montenegro for at least 24 months before election day. The electoral legal framework has remained largely unchanged since the last elections. Most prior ODIHR recommendations remain unaddressed, including those related to the comprehensive reform and harmonization of election legislation, restrictions of voting and candidacy rights, transparency and mechanisms of dispute resolution, and oversight of the campaign finance and media.
The media environment is diverse, but media outlets are operating in a limited advertising market, which affects their financial viability and makes them vulnerable to influence from corporate and political interests. Candidates are entitled to an equal amount of free airtime on the Public Service Broadcaster. Both public and commercial broadcasters are required to separate the election campaign coverage in ad hoc news blocks. Paid advertising is allowed and should be clearly labeled as such. The Agency for Electronic Media (AEM) monitors the compliance of the broadcasters with the legal provisions on campaign coverage but it does not have effective sanctioning powers.
In the 2020 parliamentary elections, the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) won the most seats, but the three coalitions which stood against it formed a government led by Zdravko Krivokapic, replacing the ruling DPS for the first time since 1990. In February 2022, the Krivokapic government fell to a vote of no confidence. A new minority government was formed by Dritan Abazovic, which in August 2022 also received a vote of no confidence but remained in office due to a lack of a newly appointed government.
In September 2022, President Milo Ðukanovic refused to accept the nomination of Miodrag Lekic of DEMOS as the candidate for Prime Minister and requested the parliament to shorten its mandate and allow for early parliamentary elections.6 In response, the parliamentary majority requested the Constitutional Court to assess whether the president violated the Constitution; if a violation is found, the dismissal of the president would be initiated. Further, the parliament adopted amendments to the Law on the President, allowing the parliament to appoint a prime minister supported by signatures of the majority of MPs if the president declines to do so.
The President requested the Venice Commission to provide an opinion on the constitutionality of the amendments to the Law on the President. In September 2022, a new party the Movement Europe Now (PES) was established and competed in the October 2022 municipal elections. The municipal elections were held in 14 of the 25 municipalities. To date, MECs in four municipalities, including Podgorica, have failed to finalize the election results.
The Constitutional Court has been without a quorum since September 2022, as the parliament failed to elect new judges on multiple occasions.11 As a result, the impeachment process, the review of the constitutionality of the legal amendments to the Law on the President and appeals pertaining to the municipal elections remain pending. Following a political agreement, on 27 February, the parliament voted to fill in three out of four vacancies in the Court, providing the Court with a quorum. All three newly appointed judges are women, and a total of 4 out of 6 currently appointed judges of the court are women.
Around 30 percent of people in Montenegro identify as Serbs, and many lament the 2006 declaration of independence from Serbia. More than 70 percent of the population worships under the local arm of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which has a history of meddling in independent Montenegro's affairs and led public opposition to the DPS in the 2020 elections.
Most observers expected Djukanovic to advance to a second-round runoff in two weeks, on April 2, to face one of the other six candidates.
Many regard New Serb Democracy leader and Democratic Front candidate Andrija Mandic as the other favorite. The 58-year-old veteran politician is similarly eager to capitalize on experience and recognizability while shedding some unwanted baggage. With dual citizenship illegal under Montenegrin law, Mandic famously acknowledged having Serbian citizenship in 2011. He was later convicted of participating in the purported Serbian- and Russian-backed coup attempt in 2016 before an appeals court threw out his guilty verdict.
Among the other notable challengers was Jakov Milatovic of the upstart Europe Now, a new party that exploded onto the scene with a surprisingly strong showing in the October 2022 local elections in the capital, Podgorica. Thirty-seven-year-old Milatovic served as economy minister in the first, short-lived cabinet after the anti-Djukanovic coalition unseated the DPS in 2020. He has campaigned on jobs and better living standards.
The Democratic Montenegro civic group argues that its candidate, Aleksa Becic, is the only candidate who is assured of "defeating the personification of the 30-year autocracy." Becic described himself on the campaign trail as "the people's president." Meanwhile, Democratic Front leader Milan Knezevic called on Mandic, Milatovic, and Becic to agree to support whichever of those three candidates reaches a second round.
Draginja Vuksanovic Stankovic, a parliamentary deputy for the Social Democratic Party which she once led, is the only woman running for president. A legislator and legal expert, she received over 8 percent of the presidential vote in 2018 on a platform of NATO and EU membership.
Goran Danilovic is a pro-Serbian former interior minister who has opposed international recognition of Kosovo, the predominantly ethnic Albanian former province of Serbia that declared independence in 2008, and has argued for Montenegro to abandon EU-led sanctions against Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The last of the presidential challengers is Jovan Radulovic, an Internet influencer and outsider whose appeal is thought to be limited among voters.
Montenegro's former economy minister Jakov Milatovic declared victory in a presidential election run-off, over long-standing incumbent Milo Djukanovic, ending more than three decades of his rule in the small Balkan republic. Western-educated Milatovic, 37, the deputy head of the Europe Now movement, campaigned on pledges to curb graft, improve living standards and bolster ties with the European Union and fellow former Yugoslav republic Serbia.
Djukanovic, 61, a former communist, had dominated Montenegro as president or prime minister for 33 years since the start of the collapse of the now-defunct six-republic Yugoslav federation. He conceded defeat to Milatovic. "Montenegro has made its choice. I respect that choice and I congratulate Jakov Milatovic," Djukanovic, who will remain at his post until the handover on May 21, told his backers in the headquarters of his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) in Podgorica.
Milatovic won 60.1% to Djukanovic's 39.9%, the Podgorica-based Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI) pollster said on the basis of results tabulated from a statistical sample of votes cast. Another pollster, the Podgorica-based Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) also put Milatovic in the lead with 56.9%. Voter turnout stood at about 70%, CEMI said.
Although the presidential post in Montenegro is largely ceremonial, victory in the presidential election would bolster the chances of the winner's party in June.
Montenegro's Europe Now Movement (PES) won 25.5% of votes in a snap election on 11 June 2023, the Center for Monitoring and Research (CEMI) pollster said on the basis of a projection of results from a sample of polling stations. The pro-European Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which ruled Montenegro between 1990 and 2020, came in second with 23.8% of support. The conservative alliance For the Future of Montenegro, led by the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front, garnered 14.7%. Another pro-EU grouping comprising the Democratic Party and the URA movement of outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic came in fourth with 12.3%, CEMI said on the basis of 90.5% of ballots counted in a representative sample of 400 polling stations across the country. Fifteen parties and alliances were vying for 81 parliamentary seats in the country of just over 620,000 people. The PES, which has pro-European Union policies and also wants closer ties with neighboring Serbia, failed to secure enough votes to rule alone, and will have to seek partners in the 81-seat parliament to form the government. Montenegrins hope the new administration will improve the country's economy and infrastructure, and take the NATO member state closer to EU membership. The vote was the first in the former Yugoslav republic since Milo Djukanovic, former leader of the DPS, lost the presidential election in April and stepped down after 30 years in power.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
