August 31 (SeeNews) - Montenegro president Milo Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) has won Sunday's general election with a narrow margin ahead of opposition coalition For the Future of Montenegro, final official results showed on Monday.
Based on 100% of the ballots counted, DPS led with 143,548 votes, or 35.06% of the ballots cast - its lowest election result since 1990, yet large enough to secure the party's 11th straight win in vote for parliament, according to figures released by the election commission.
For the Future of Montenegro coalition, comprising right-wing populist alliance Democratic Front, conservative alliance Popular Movement, and the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro, came second with 32.55%.
Early on Monday, Djukanovic claimed that his party has won 145,000 votes, securing 40 seats in parliament together with its traditional coalition partners.
"The result of DPS in this election is at about 145,000 votes and 30 mandates [...] Together with our traditional coalition partners, for now we have 40 mandates," Djukanovic, who has been serving as prime minister or president almost uninterruptedly since 1990, said in a video file posted on the website of public broadcaster RTCG early on Monday.
"Dear citizens, we thank you for your perseverance and dignity. No matter what we have gone through during this cycle. The regime has fallen," the leader of For the Future of Montenegro, Zdravko Krivokapic, said in a video file posted on the YouTube channel of news agency Fos Media late on Sunday.
The pro-European coalition Peace is Our Nation, which includes centrist party Democratic Montenegro and centre-right DEMOS alongside others, won 12.53% of the votes, followed by green political party United Reform Action (URA) with 5.53%, the Social Democrats of Montenegro with 4.10% and the Bosniak Party with 3.98%.
The Social Democratic Party of Montenegro, with 3.14% of the votes, has also passed the 3% threshold to enter parliament.
DPS won 40.9% of the votes in the early general election held on October 16, 2016, securing 36 of 81 seats in parliament. The party subsequently formed a government coalition with the Social Democrats of Montenegro and the Bosniak, Albanian and Croatian minority parties. The outgoing DPS-led government is supported by 41 MPs.
To secure representation in parliament, a party or a coalition needs to win at least 3.0% of all valid votes. However, the threshold for candidates running on ethnic minority lists representing population that accounts for at least 15% of the population in any of the country's districts is 0.7%. Ethnic Croat lists are exempt from that rule. If no list representing ethnic Croats passes the 0.7% threshold, the list with the most votes wins one seat in parliament if it has received the support of more than 0.35% of the voters.
According to the final results, the 0.7% threshold was passed by the Albanian List coaliton of ethnic parties New Democratic Force (Forca), the Albanian Alternative (AA), Albanian Coalition Perspective (AKP) and the Democratic League of Albanians which secured 1.58% of the votes, and the Albanian Coalition of the Democratic Party (DP) of former пayor of Ulcinj, Fatmir Gjeka, the Democratic Union of Albanians (DUA) and the Democratic League in Montenegro (DSCG) with 1.14%. The Croatian Civic Initiative secured 0.27% of the votes, while the Croatian Reform Party won 0.13%.