WEB DESK
Montenegro is holding an early parliamentary election today. The state election commission said 15 parties and alliances will compete for 81 parliamentary seats. More than five lakh voters are eligible to cast their vote.
The election will be Montenegro’s first in more than 30 years that does not feature Milo Djukanovic, who served almost continuously as the country’s prime minister or president since 2001. He lost a presidential election in April and stepped down.
A poll by the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights last month put the pro-European Movement Europe Now (PES) party in the lead with 29.1 percent of the vote.
The PES’s Jakov Milatovic won the April presidential vote. During the election campaign, PES party chief and former Finance Minister Milojko Spajic pledged to rejuvenate an economy plagued by mismanagement and graft.
The Democratic Party of Socialists, the party formerly led by Djukanovic, experienced a decline in popularity after three decades of dominance and has new leadership looking for a chance to make a comeback.