Montenegrin parliamentary election, 2016

Background

Protests against incumbent Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic occurred in the preceding year over issues ranging from NATO membership to electoral fraud.

Electoral system

The 81 seats of the Parliament of Montenegro are elected in a single nationwide constituency by closed list proportional representation. Seats are allocated using the d'Hondt method with a 3% electoral threshold. However, minority groups that account for at least 15% of the population in a district are given an exemption that lowers the electoral threshold to 0.7% if their list fails to cross the 3% threshold. For ethnic Croats, if no list representing the population passes the 0.7% threshold, the list with the most votes will win one seat if it receives more than 0.35% of the vote.

Campaign

On 31 August 2016, the Democratic Serb Party (DSS) decided to sign an agreement with Democratic Front Alliance, as did the far-left Yugoslav Communist Party (JKP) and right-wing Democratic Party of Unity (DSJ).

The Socialist People's Party (SNP), United Reform Action (URA) and DEMOS agreed to form a pre-election alliance under the name Key Coalition, with Miodrag Lekić as leader.

On 8 September 2016 the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) decided to run independently, with two Liberal Party (LP) representatives on their electoral list.

Electoral lists

^M — National minority list

Opinion polls

Poll results are listed in the table below in reverse chronological order, showing the most recent first, and using the date the survey's fieldwork was done, as opposed to the date of publication. If such date is unknown, the date of publication is given instead. The highest percentage figure in each polling survey is displayed in bold, and the background shaded in the leading party's colour. In the instance that there is a tie, then no figure is shaded. The lead column on the right shows the percentage-point difference between the two parties with the highest figures. When a specific poll does not show a data figure for a party, the party's cell corresponding to that poll is shown empty. The threshold for a party to elect members is 3%.

Conduct

A group of 20 Serbian and Montenegrin citizens were arrested on election day. Fourteen remain in custody (As of 12 November 2016), including former head of Serbian Gendarmery Bratislav Dikić, and some that fought for the pro-Russian side in the War in Donbass. The Montenegrin prosecutor Milivoje Katnić has stated that there is no evidence of Russian state involvement, but that two Russian nationalists organized the plot. Russian citizens in Serbia, monitoring Prime Minister Đukanović, had been supervised by the Special prosecution, which prevented them from realizing the plan. The Serbian authorities found 125,000€ in cash and uniforms, and deported an unknown number of Russian citizens. At the same time, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić told that there had been increased activity by a number of different intelligence agencies, 'from both the East and the West', against Serbian interests, and that members of these agencies had been apprehended. The Montenegrin prosecutor said that the intention was to have 500 people enter Montenegro on election night to "cause violence", and hire assassin snipers to murder Prime Minister Đukanović – to stop Montenegro from entering NATO and prevent Russia from losing an ally in the Balkans. The Montenegrin opposition claims that the conspiracy was created to influence the outcome of the elections. All opposition parties claimed that the coup attempt was staged by the Government of Montenegro and DPS as a publicity stunt to improve their electoral results, and denounced elections as irregular, refusing to accept the results.

Aftermath

Following the events which surrounded the elections, the entire opposition started a collective boycott of all parliamentary sittings. As of January 2017, 39 of the 81 MPs were boycotting parliament, requesting new elections to be held no later than 2018, when the next presidential elections are scheduled.