AFP
Montenegro: veteran Djukanovic loses the presidential election after three decades in power
The political scene in Montenegro was turned upside down on Sunday evening by the defeat in the presidential election of veteran Milo Djukanovic after three decades of rule in the Balkan country, against newcomer Jakov Milatovic. “Together with all the citizens of Montenegro, we said this evening a crucial + no + to crime and corruption”, welcomed Jakov Milatovic, a 36-year-old pro-European economist. “This is the evening that we have been waiting for for more than thirty years. May this victory bring us all luck!”, He continued in front of his jubilant supporters. over the next five years,” he promised. Milatovic obtained 60% of the votes against 40% for his rival, according to projections by the NGO CeMI covering almost all the polling stations. The official results are expected later in the week. In the first round, two weeks earlier, Milo Djukanovic had won 35.4% of the vote against 28.9% for Jakov Milatovic. Outgoing President Milo Djukanovic, 61, admitted defeat. “Montenegro has chosen. I respect that choice. I congratulate Jakov Milatovic,” he said. “I want Milatovic to be a successful president because that will mean that Montenegro can be a successful country,” he added. now” celebrated his victory with honks and fireworks. In Montenegro, the president has mainly a representative role and the prime minister holds the main levers of power. Snap parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 11 after month of blockage. The current government was overthrown by a motion of no confidence in August 2022 but continues to manage day-to-day affairs. Milo Djukanovic was a fixture on the political scene in Montenegro for more than 30 years, serving on multiple occasions as Prime Minister or of president.- Promise to join the EU -This is his biggest setback since the historic defeat of his party, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), in the last legislative elections of 2020. Since then, the country has gone from crisis within crisis, with the fall of two governments. Milo Djukanovic came to power in 1991, at the age of 29, supported by the strongman of Belgrade Slobodan Milosevic at the beginning of the bloody wars which were going to burst the old Yugoslavia. As Serbia became a pariah on the international scene, he had known how to distance himself. He moved closer to the West, broke with Belgrade and won the independence of Montenegro in a referendum in 2006. His country joined NATO, became a candidate for the European Union and left the sphere of Russian influence. He also sought to limit the influence of Serbia and to consolidate a national identity separate from Montenegro. A difficult task in a country where a third of the inhabitants identify themselves as Serbs. But his detractors accuse him of clientelism, widespread corruption and links with organized crime, which the person concerned strongly denies. Milatovic campaigned on the promise of European Union membership. He also said he was in favor of “good relations with Serbia as with all the nations of the Western Balkans”. This former member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), entered politics by becoming Minister of Development government in the first government formed after the 2020 legislative elections. Qualified as populist by some, this father of three has made himself particularly appreciated by imposing a controversial economic program which has almost doubled the minimum wage to 450 euros. Like the rest of the Balkans, Montenegro, a country of 620,000 inhabitants, is undergoing economic difficulties which are reflected in particular by an exodus of its youth. str-rus-ds-ev/fjb/roc/pz
