A significant decline of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), a jump of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and a slightly worse result of the governing parties at the state level compared to August 30 last year.
That is a summary of yesterday's local elections in three municipalities - Mojkovac, Petnjica and Cetinje.
Political analyst Miloš Bešić assesses that the citizens sent a message to the DPS yesterday - that it needs to make some serious changes in its policy, but also to the parties of the new government that they must be united, if they want to keep their trust.
After sixteen years of government, DPS will join the opposition benches of the Mojkovac parliament.
This party, together with the Social Democrats and the Liberal Party, won almost 400 fewer votes in Mojkovac than in last year's parliamentary elections.
Thus, she remained behind the previous opposition, which has a total of 17 mandates, although support for the majority fell compared to August 30 last year.
And in Cetinje, the decline of the ruling DPS, and the strong growth of the SDP.
DPS got as many as 1.700 votes less than last year, and SDP jumped almost 10 percent, and now has 670 votes more than in 2020.
Democratic Montenegro (Democrat) and the Civic Movement URA were left without two and one councilor seats, respectively, while the Old Guard of the Liberal Union of Montenegro jumped from two to three.
DPS won absolute power in Petnjica - but even there they had about 600 fewer votes compared to last year's elections.
In this municipality, the Bosniak Party (BS), the Democrats and mostly the Justice and Reconciliation Party grew.
Political analyst Miloš Bešič notes that the drop in turnout in yesterday's local elections compared to last year's parliamentary elections reflects citizens' dissatisfaction with both the government and the opposition.
According to him, the fall of DPS means that citizens are looking for radical changes in that party.
"Cosmetic changes will not be enough, and they say that something must change more seriously in their approach, their policy, personnel policy. I think that this is finally clear to the DPS," Bešić pointed out.
It is clear, says Bešić, that SDP has the most reason to celebrate.
"They are in a situation where they are absolutely wondering when it comes to the new government in Cetinje. And it is a very important symbolic message that this authentic, civic, pro-Montenegro fabric is moving towards them. The passage of time leads to the loss of DPS votes, but those votes they do not go to the opposite bloc, but that the SDP is primarily the source of dissatisfied DPS votes," said Bešić.
And how satisfied are the voters with UR, the Democrats and the DF, which make up the government at the state level?
"The URA, regardless of the fact that there is a relative decrease in the total number of votes, in all three municipalities they fell somewhat, but considering their very unpleasant situation, I would say that they can be more than satisfied as well as the Democrats, who have a relative increase. I don't see any particular reason to be happy for DF. Yes, they will take power in Mojkovac, that's not a problem, but they just have to follow what is the message of their electorate. They are, not as expressive as DPS, but DF took less votes overall total than they took on August 30, 2020," said Bešić.
It is their own fault, Bešić says, because, as he points out, the three governing coalitions are not in agreement and are sending conflicting messages.
Everything that happened yesterday, he concludes, is a clear signal from citizens that...
"We do not want the DPS to return, because they were simply not good enough, let them seriously change something, if they think we vote for them, equally - we are very critical of the new government, but our criticism of the new government is not enough for them to vote again voted for DPS," said Bešić.
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