BRUSSELS – The Rapporteur of the European Parliament for Montenegro, Tonino Picula, will lead the EP delegation that will observe the presidential elections in Montenegro on 19 March, Radio Free Europe reported.
“The election that will be held in Montenegro will certainly be marked by the polarization that has been paralyzing the political life of the most advanced candidate country for EU membership for more than two years”, Picula said.
He added that the EP delegation is to monitor the legality of elections and the circumstances in which they are conducted. The delegation will analyze the candidates’ campaigns, media coverage of the elections, and meetings with the candidates for the President of Montenegro are also planned.
On 19 March, the first round of presidential elections will be held, where citizens will choose between the current president, Milo Đukanović, and the leaders of the parties that ousted his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) from power in 2020. Although Montenegrin system of power-sharing, the function of the president is significantly weaker than that of the prime minister, these elections are seen as significant, as they could be a prelude to extraordinary parliamentary elections and a new division of power on the rather complicated Montenegrin political scene.
Apart from Đukanović, Andrija Mandić, one of the leaders of the pro-Serbian Democratic Front (DF), is also in the running, as well as Jakov Milatović from the new movement “Europe now”, which is increasingly popular among voters, and Aleksa Bečić, as the leader of the Democrats, another significant part of the current of the majority, which, however, fared less well in the recent local elections. The candidates are the leader of one of the numerous parties of the ruling majority – United Montenegro, Goran Danilović, and the MP of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), Draginja Vuksanović-Stanković.