Although he has retired from politics three times, Milo Đukanović has spent 27 years holding the most important positions in Montenegro. On Sunday, in the presidential elections, he returns to the scene.
Đukanović has returned from his self-proclaimed retirement every time his party, which has been in power in Montenegro the entire time, has faced a crisis. The former Montenegrin Prime Minister for six terms and President for one is likely to return to the head of state, and the only question is whether he will succeed in the first round or if one of his opponents will force him into a second.
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A public opinion poll conducted by the Podgorica Center for Democratic Transition at the end of March gives Đukanović 50.6 percent of the votes. His closest rival, independent Mladen Bojanić, receives 35 percent, while the other five candidates are in single digits.
Excluding three short “retirements,” Đukanović (56) has held the position of head of government or state since 1991, when he was the youngest European Prime Minister. His Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which emerged from the former Montenegrin League of Communists, has never been in opposition.
Đukanović’s last withdrawal from politics followed the parliamentary elections in October 2016, which were overshadowed by a scandal involving the hacking of social networks used by the opposition to circumvent the DPS’s dominance in state media.
He returns to the political scene at a time when the DPS is under pressure from a potential loss of power in several cities in the local elections on May 27 and with a slim majority in parliament. However, Đukanović has always caused divisions in Montenegro, and his party has remained in power primarily due to the disunity among opposition parties, which seem to agree only in their attacks on him.
