There will be a runoff presidential election in Montenegro next month as no one won in the first round of voting on Sunday held amid political turmoil in the Balkan country, according to reports on Monday.
President Milo Djukanovic, 61, won around 35% of the votes, while 37-year-old economist Jakov Milatovic won some 29%, according to projections released by the Center for Monitoring and Research.
If confirmed in the official tally, the two will face each other in the April 2 runoff. The CeMI monitoring group insisted that they do not expect major changes as the counting continues. It was not immediately clear when official results will be published.
“We achieved exactly what we wanted. This is what we planned,” Djukanovic said. He described the outcome as “wind in the back” for his Democratic Party of Socialists ahead of upcoming parliamentary votes, “so that we confirm the strength of European Montenegro and form a government that will continue to lead Montenegro on the European path.”
Milatovic, a former economy minister and a leader of the recently-formed Europe Now group, also struck a victorious tone in his post-election speech, pledging to “send Djukanovic to political retirement” following his more than 30 years in power.
“This is a victory for the entire Montenegro that generations have waited for,” said Milatovic. /Argumentum.al
