Montenegrin Parties Revamp Political Scene Ahead of Elections

Democratic Front MPs at a Montenegrin parliament session in Podgorica. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro

They said on Saturday that pro-Serbian politicians Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic's New Serbian Democracy and Democratic People's Party will go to polls as a coalition, while Nebojsa Medojevic's Movement for Changes will compete on its own.

"After [veteran Montenegrin leader] Milo Djukanovic's electoral defeat, we decided to continue our political struggle individually. There is no conflict between us, but the constituent parties decided to take different paths towards the same goal," Mandic told a press conference.

After the pro-Serbian bloc led by the Democratic Front took 32 per cent of the votes in the August 2020 parliamentary elections, it continued its electoral success by winning mayoralties in the towns of Niksic, Budva, Tivat, Mojkovac, Berane and Pljevlja.

In the presidential elections in April this year, Mandic won 19.3 percent, but newly-formed Europe Now movement candidate Jakov Milatovic defeated him and Djukanovic to became the country's new president.

The executive director of NGO CEMI, Ana Nenezic, said that the Democratic Front's political end was expected after Mandic's relatively poor results in the presidential elections.

"Bearing in mind that this result was not satisfactory for the bloc, it's politically logical for them to reposition themselves and return to their initial radical positions," Nenezic told BIRN.

After Djukanovic's resignation as the leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS on April 6, political changes have continued in the pro-Montenegrin opposition bloc.

On May 12, the DPS said it will contest the elections in a coalition with the Social Democrats,...