The presidential elections in Montenegro will be a repeat of the referendum on independence, and at the same time a vote on NATO and the EU, according to today's Moscow daily Komersant.
The newspaper states that the favorites in the elections on April 15 are the leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Milo Đukanović and the opposition candidate Mladen Bojanić, "whom they call a pro-Serbian and anti-NATO politician."
Dnevnik writes that the presidential campaign has never been so short in Montenegro, because it started literally a couple of weeks before the election.
This happened because both the opposition and the ruling party procrastinated until the end with their candidacy, waiting for their competitors to decide, writes Komersant.
The newspaper states that there is another factor that caused the election campaign to start so late and explains that the main intrigue of all the last months was the question of whether Đukanović or the former Minister of Defense Milica Pejanović Đurišić would run, but that the prevailing opinion was that "the stakes are too high tall to play with the reserve team".
Komersant writes that a significant part of the opposition managed to agree on a common candidate, Bojanić.
"Even the initiators of his candidacy characterize Bojanic as a pro-Serbian and anti-NATO politician. In his program, he is also negative about Montenegro's membership in NATO and does not speak in favor of independence, nor about plans to join the EU," the newspaper writes.
Dnevnik estimates that the upcoming duel of presidential candidates will, in essence, be a repetition of the referendum on independence, and at the same time, a vote on NATO and the EU.
Komersant writes that there is a "Russian factor" in the Montenegrin elections, as well as in the last parliamentary elections in the fall of 2016, when Moscow "practically openly supported" the opposition Democratic Front (DF), which is against Montenegro's entry into NATO.
"Today in Moscow, they do not directly express support for the DF candidate, but judging by the statements of a number of Russian politicians and pro-Kremlin analysts, the negative attitude towards Djukanovic, who brought the country into NATO, has not changed much," writes Kommersant.
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