According to preliminary results, the Europe Now Movement (PES) won around 26% of votes or 24 seats in the 81-seat Montenegrin parliament in the early elections held on Sunday, and by all accounts, the party will be the one to form the new Montenegrin government.

Previous projections showed that PES could win 30% of votes. The elections were marked by a record low turnout of around 55% and excellent results of minority parties.

The Europe Now Movement is a political party formed from the first government that was formed after the August 2020 parliamentary election and its leaders are former ministers in the government of former Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić, Milojko Spajić and Jakov Milatović. The government was formed under the strong influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Spajić and Milatović won voters’ support after in early 2022, after the fall of Krivokapić’s government, they managed to raise the minimum wage in Montenegro from €220 to 450. In early April, Milatović was elected Montenegro’s president, defeating in the second round of the election then President Milo Đukanović.

Đukanović’s Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) won 22% of votes or 22 seats even though after more than three decades its slate did not include Đukanović and its long-time associates. After he was defeated in the presidential election in April, Đukanović stepped down as DPS leader.

The coalition of the United Reform Action (URA) and the Democratic Montenegro, led by incumbent Prime Minister Dritan Abazović and former Parliament Speaker Aleksa Bečić respectively, won 13% of votes or 11 parliamentary seats.

The coalition formed after the break-up of the right-wing, pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Democratic Front, made up of the New Serbian Democracy of Chetnik duke Andrija Mandić and the Democratic People’s Party of Milan Knežević, won 15% of votes or 14 seats, while the third member of the now defunct Democratic Front, Nebojša Milojević’s Movement for Change, did not cross the election threshold.

As expected, the only party of Montenegrin Croats, the Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI), managed to cross the preferred threshold of 0.3% of valid ballots and win one seat.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković congratulated HGI leader Adrijan Vuksanović on being elected to the Montenegrin parliament.

The two ethnic Albanian parties, too, won one seat each, but the number could rise to three until tomorrow morning.

The biggest surprise of the elections is the Bosniak Party, which could have six seats in the future parliament as against two in the current parliament.

The final number of seats won in Sunday’s polls will be known after all ballots are counted as the votes of those who did not cross the election threshold will be distributed among the election winners.

The early parliamentary election in Montenegro was monitored by around 2,000 domestic and foreign observers who did not report any irregularities that could affect the election outcome.

Fifteen parties and coalitions ran in the elections.