Montenegro’s shape-shifting president Milo Djukanovic, Europe’s longest-serving elected leader, lost a re-election bid on Sunday, according to preliminary official results. the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s.
Sunday’s vote was a runoff between the top two finishers of seven candidates who entered a first-round run last month. Djukanovic, 61, conceded defeat late on Sunday to Jakov Milatovic, 36, an Oxford-educated economist who campaigned to stamp out corruption and organized crime.
Mr Milatovic won decisively with about 60 percent of the vote, with 70 percent counted as of Sunday evening.
Mr Djukanovic said he respected the outcome of the vote and wished Mr Milatovic success, adding: “If he is successful, it means that Montenegro can become a successful country.”
Mr Milatovic, backed by most of the losing candidates in the first round, was expected to win, but Mr Djukanovic, a consummate political survivor, had dominated Montenegro for so long – serving four terms as Prime Minister and two terms as President – that his defeat still caused a sensation.
“Tonight is the night we’ve been waiting for for more than 30 years,” Milatovic told supporters in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital. “We have said goodbye to crime and corruption. This is a historic day for everyone.”
Throughout his career, Mr Djukanovic has been dogged by allegations of links to organized crime, which he has vehemently denied.
The defeat of a leader who began his political career in the former Yugoslavia lifted opposition groups elsewhere in the Balkans, particularly in neighboring Serbia, whose own deep-rooted veteran leader, Aleksandar Vucic, also got his start in Yugoslavia and has been a fixture of Serbian politics over decades.
“We hope that this victory will be a clear signal to everyone that the previous policy of division and conflict is dying out, because the whole region needs new people and new energy,” Serbian opposition party Zajedno said in a statement. welcomed Milatovic’s victory.
Yugoslavia, a federation of republics, dissolved in 1992, but unlike Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia, which all declared independence, Montenegro and Serbia formed a new federal state called Serbia-Montenegro. That entity, shaky from the start, disintegrated after Montenegro declared independence in 2006.
Mr Djukanovic first came to power in 1991 as Prime Minister of Montenegro, then part of Yugoslavia. Initial a close ally of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s Russia-friendly strong leaderhe later shifted his allegiance to the United States, securing Montenegro’s entry into NATO in 2017 despite widespread public hostility towards a military alliance that bombed the country in 1999.
Mr Djukanovic also sought membership in the European Union, but that attempt, which began in 2008, largely came up against Montenegro’s reputation for harboring criminals.
Milatovic vowed on Sunday to get the country in the bloc before the end of his five-year term as president.
Mr Milatovic, a political novice, ran as a candidate for the newly formed Europe Now party, vowing to shake off Montenegro’s unsavory image. He accused Mr. Djukanovic of having turned the country into the “Colombia of the Balkans”, a reference to Montenegro’s role as hub in front smuggling cigarettes and other contraband.
Mr Djukanovic was close to Russia in the 1990s and 2000s when Montenegro opened its doors to a flood of investment from Russia and became a popular holiday destination for Russians. But he later aligned himself with the West and accused Russia of orchestrating what his officials said was a failed coup in 2016 aimed at torpedoing the country’s NATO membership.
He also contacted China and struck a deal with that country’s state-owned enterprises for the construction of a “highway to nowhere” that cost nearly $1 billion and put a great strain on Montenegro’s finances.
Mr Djukanovic tried to paint Mr Milatovic, his electoral rival, as a fighter for Serbian interests, citing his endorsement by pro-Serbian politicians. But that was a hard sell given Mr Milatovic’s previous career at Deutsche Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the incumbent’s long track record of flip-flops and questionable deals.
Alisa Dogramadzieva reporting contributed.