Elections in Montenegro

For the first time in almost two decades, the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, will run in the elections alone under its leader Milo Djukanovic - who hopes for a seventh term as prime minister.

Montenegrin lawmakers on Wednesday  will meet to approve a new cabinet after the ruling and opposition parties agreed on forming a transitional government to organize parliamentary elections by the end of this year.

It is expected that MPs at the same session will adopt a special law to legally define the implementation of the agreement and how state resources can be used.

The Assembly of the Municipality of Bijelo Polje in northeastern Montenegro has rejected a proposal to make Aleksandar Vucic an honorary citizen.

Media in Podgorica are reporting that councilors from the Democratic Party of Socialists, the Social-Democratic Party, and Demos voted against.

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.

Talks on government personnel changes could be completed in the second half of October , BIRN has learned from a source in the Montenegrin government, ending in a vote on the government's reconstruction in parliament.

Following a two-month political crisis over who should run the capital city, Montenegro's Social Democratic Party, SDP, which is led by the speaker of parliament, Ranko Krivokapic, has asked the opposition parties to support the formation of a provisional "technical" government.

SDP-DPS Feud Escalates

Bulgaria’s opposition center-right GERB party would have won 27.2% of the vote if parliamentary elections were held last Friday.

The figure is well ahead of the results for the ruling Socialists, who would have gathered 13.5% of the ballots cast.

The leader of the main opposition Democratic Front, Miodrag Lekic, on Thursday said negotiations with the Socialist People's Party and the coalition of the Social Democratic Party and Positive Montenegro on forming an authority in the capital would start after June 10.