TIRANA, April 1 – Montenegro’s veteran president Milo Dukanović faces a run-off on Sunday April 2 against the pro-Western former economy minister Jakov Milatović.
After no candidate secured a 50 percent majority in a first-round election two weeks ago, it promises to be a tight and tense race to the finish post.
After a lot of political activism and climbing political ladders, Milo Dukanović was appointed Prime Minister of Montenegro in 1991. He has since alternated between the roles of PM and president from 1991 to date becoming the symbolic leader in power in the Western Balkans.
He is frequently accused by the Montenegrin opposition of creating conditions for the country to become a safe haven for narcotics and cigarette smuggling.
In 2003, the prosecutor in Naples in Italy requested his arrest for the alleged participation in billions of dollars worth of racketeering schemes. In 2009, the prosecutor’s office dropped the charges.
In the meantime the other candidate, Jakov Milatović has been the principal economist within the EBRD for the EU countries, with the base in Romania’s capital, Bucharest since 2019. In 2020, he returned to Montenegro to serve as Economy Minister until April 2022.
In the same year, together with his co-worker Milojko Spajić, he created the party Europe Now. He is pro-European and advocates stronger ties with Serbia.
Fighting organized crime in Montenegro is at the top of the list of challenger Milatović.
He claims the 30+ years of rule by Đukanović has destroyed the country, and turned it into “Balkans Colombia” – an accusation strongly rejected by the incumbent president.
In the past few years, a number of Montenegrin citizens were involved in busted major drug trafficking rings in Montenegro and worldwide. /Argumentum.al
