Montenegro Ruling Party Wins Local Poll

Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, scored its latest local government poll win on Sunday in Herceg Novi, a town on the Montenegrin-Croatian border.

Although no party won an absolute majority in Sunday's poll, it was clear that the united opposition list had lost its majority for the first time in 14 years.

In May's local elections in 12 municipalities in Montenegro, the Prime Minister's party also won 11 of them.

Herceg Novi and the town of Pluzine were the only two municipalities in the country in which Djukanovic's party was in opposition.

According to preliminary results, the DPS will now hold 13 out of the 34 seats on the Herceg Novi council. The opposition Socialist People's Party and the Democratic Front together will have eight seats, while Djukanovic's partner at the nation level, the Social Democratic Party, will have two. 

But the ‘kingmaker' role on the municipal council is likely to be taken by an independent non-party list called Izbor (The Choice), which won nine seats even though it was only founded in September to campaign on purely local issues.

"A new history of Montenegro and the region has been written in Herceg Novi," said Dusan Radovic Kruso of Izbor.

"As absolute first-timers, we are the genuine and moral winners of the elections," he said.

Turnout at the local elections in Herceg Novi was over 66 per cent of the total 24,810 registered voters. No significant irregularities were reported to the Municipal Election Commission.