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Montenegro’s longtime president Milo Đukanović conceded defeat on Sunday to Jakov Milatović, a 37-year-old banker who promised to speed up the country’s accession talks with the European Union.
Early results in the run-off poll for head of state showed Đukanović, who first came to power as prime minister 32 years ago, lost with just 40 per cent of the vote to around 60 for Milatović. The young politician’s Europe Now! movement was founded just four months ago but quickly galvanised voter discontent over alleged corruption and state capture.
“I am convinced that starting tonight Montenegro is in the full sense of the word free,” Milatović said on Sunday. Đukanović wished him success and said he would respect the decision of the citizens of the Balkan nation, which broke away peacefully from Serbia in 2006.
The exit of Đukanović, an iconic figure in Balkan politics, represents a sea change in Montenegro, the smallest country in the region with a population of just 620,000, where the 61-year-old veteran has been president or prime minister for nearly all of the past three decades. His Socialist party has been firmly in control since the 1980s.
As one of his last acts in office Đukanović called parliamentary elections for June 11, a vote that will now determine the future of his party as well, with the presidential setback possibly a harbinger of deeper change in Podgorica.
Miloš Damjanović, an analyst for the BIRN consultancy in Belgrade, told the Financial Times that the heavy defeat of the president was “wind in the sails of centrist, pro-EU parties” and an “opportunity for a new start for Montenegro”.
He added that the Socialist party would probably be weakened significantly in the upcoming parliamentary polls.
Milatović had the backing of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church as well as the support of several pro-Serbia parties. The new president entered high-level politics two years ago when he was chosen as economy minister at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and co-engineered reforms of wages and taxes.
Adnan Ćerimagić of the European Stability Initiative in Berlin said that with the success of Milatović, Montenegro, which joined Nato in 2017 but is still negotiating its EU membership, was now “the EU’s biggest credibility test”.
“If the EU is unable to move beyond empty perspectives for Montenegro, the most advanced accession country, reliable Nato partner, with full foreign policy alignment — how will it ever be with other countries?”
While Croatia joined the bloc in 2013, other Balkan nations remain in different stages of the process of joining: Serbia and Montenegro are the only ones currently in accession talks; Albania and North Macedonia are right at the start of negotiations; and Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina have not yet been given official candidate status.
Ćerimagić said Brussels should prepare to offer Podgorica full membership by 2027, when both the EU’s current budget period and the new government’s term expire.
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