The majority of polling stations in Montenegro, where citizens are currently electing local authorities in 14 out of 25 municipalities, were opened on time, and minor irregularities were recorded at some polling stations, announced the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT), whose observers are monitoring the voting process.

In Podgorica, which makes up about a quarter of the total electorate, 6.8 percent of voters voted by 9 a.m., while in the presidential elections in the capital, the turnout at the same time was 7.5 percent.

However, voters from Tuzi and Zeta also took part in the elections at that time. These former city municipalities have, in the meantime, received the status of separate municipalities.

Observers noted delays in the opening of polling stations “for technical reasons” at some polling stations, and the biggest irregularity was reported in the smallest constituency of Šavnik, where voters were not allowed to vote, which is why voting was interrupted at one polling station.

Polling stations close at 8 p.m.

In addition to Podgorica, citizens today elect local authorities in Bijelo Polje, Bar, Budva, Danilovgrad, Žabljak, Zeta, Kolašin, Pljevalji, Plav, Plužine, Rožaj, Tivat and Šavnik.

About 345,000 voters have the right to vote, which is about 64 percent of the total voting body in the country. About 100 electoral lists participate in the elections, and 481 councilors are elected.

Today’s vote will be the biggest test of citizens’ trust in political parties after the parliamentary elections in 2020, when the government in Montenegro changed.

The local elections are being held at a time when the Constitutional Court is blocked, the government is in a technical mandate, and there is also an initiative to dismiss Milo Đukanović from the post of President of Montenegro, after he refused to give a mandate to the assembly from August 2020 at the proposal of the parliamentary majority. of the new Government, Miodrag Lekić.

In all cities, the two political blocs that have been dominating in Montenegro for years will compete.

On one side are the parties that ruled at the state level until the 2020 elections, led by Milo Đukanović’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS). In most municipalities, they act in a coalition.

On the other side are the winning parties of the 2020 elections, led by the pro-Serbian Democratic Front (DF), the Democrats and the Citizens’ Movement of Ura. They perform mostly disunited.

Of these 14 municipalities, nine have been ruled by DPS with coalition partners.

The main battle is for Podgorica, which has been governed for more than 20 years by the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of Milo Đukanović, whose ranks include the current mayor, Ivan Vuković.

Vuković leads the coalition of DPS and nine parties and organizations from the pro-Montenegrin bloc as well as parties of national minorities, Albanians, Bosniaks and Roma.

The main competitors are the parties and coalitions that, after winning the 2020 elections, formed a parliamentary majority and voted in the government of Zdravko Krivokapić, which lasted a little over a year.

They go to the elections in several columns, and two of them are led by former ministers in Krivokapić’s government until the formation of the government in 2020, completely unknown to the public.

The Democratic Front is led by Jelena Borovinić Bojović, Minister of Health in the former Krivokapić government, and the newly founded “Europe Now” Movement is led by former Minister of Economy Jakov Milatović.

In Podgorica, the turnout was higher than in the 2018 elections, voting was held in 13 more municipalities
In the local elections in Podgorica, 28.7 percent of voters voted by 12 noon, which is a few percent higher turnout compared to the previous local elections in 2018.