Belgrade (EFE) towards the European Union (EU).
Some 540,000 voters will be able to choose the president from among seven candidates, including a woman, for a five-year term, in presidential quarters since Montenegro gained independence in 2006.
Just two days before the celebration of these regular presidential elections, the president of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, dissolved Parliament and announced early legislative elections for June 11 due to the failure of the attempt to form a new government, after the fall of the current one last August.
Djukanovic, leader of the Europeanist Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the dominant figure in Montenegrin politics for three decades, is running for re-election.
This candidate, six times prime minister and president in two terms, considered the “father of independence” of Montenegro, traced the Euro-Atlantic path of the country and promoted the entry into NATO, in 2017, but is accused by his critics of autocracy and to polarize society along lines of identity.
Andrija Mandic, another political veteran, is the candidate for the pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front (DF), and together with Djukanovic, the protagonist of the strong polarization in Montenegrin society.
A victory for Mandic, once a vehement opponent of the country’s entry into NATO, would create some uncertainty about the course of Montenegro’s foreign policy, which until now has been aligned with the EU and with the sanctions against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.
Two other candidates with options are the centrist Europeanists Aleksa Becic, leader of Democratic Montenegro, and the economist Jakov Milatovic, of the young extra-parliamentary movement Europe Now! (ES), on the rise in Montenegrin politics.
Both promote a moderate and conciliatory discourse.
Likely second round
It is expected that no candidate will achieve an absolute majority today and that a second round will be necessary, to be held on April 2 between the two most voted candidates.
Analysts believe that Djukanovic will be in that round, where he will face Mandic, Milatovic or Becic.
Those opponents of Djukanovic belong to the heterogeneous coalition of Europeanists and pro-Russians that in 2020 ousted the DPS from power for the first time in three decades, but which due to their internal differences has not been able to consolidate itself in the government.
It is considered that the presidential elections are a test for the strength of the parties in the face of the anticipated legislative elections in this country, where political instability has caused the fall of two governments since the 2020 elections.
Montenegro, which formed a common state with Serbia until 2006 after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, has been a NATO member since 2017 and a candidate for EU membership.