Thousands took to the streets in Montenegro on Tuesday night as the country’s pro-Serbian and pro-Russian opposition movement claimed victory in parliamentary elections.
Official results from the election on Sunday has given a wafer-thin majority to opposition parties, as the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which has run Montenegro for 30 years, won the biggest share of the vote (35%) but fell one seat short of a majority.
That was enough for opposition leaders and supporters to call time on President Milo Djukanovich’s party’s government.
“I came here to celebrate this historic victory of the people of Montenegro over a criminal regime,” one woman celebrating in the centre of Podgorica told reporters on Monday evening.
Another opposition supporter, pensioner Bojan Tosic, 55, expressed his relief that political change could happen peacefully:
“I am very happy with the result of the elections because we will change the power after thirty years through a vote, without violence, without revolution, without counter-revolution, without coloured revolution. It’s important that we witness the changes.”