The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) enjoys the highest support among Montenegrins – 39%. It is followed by Democrats (20%), whereas Democratic Front (DF) has 11% support, a significant drop compared to December last year.
This is a result of a survey “Political Public Opinion in Montenegro, June 2017”, conducted by the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights CEDEM on a sample of 1,032 respondents.
Director of CEDEM Milena Besic said that it is especially striking that support for DF fell from 21% in December last year to 11%.
“This is a significant drop regardless of the fact that this 11% is by 3% better result than in November 2015. Last year, parliamentary elections were conducted, as well as a campaign marked by state coup and all the developments that followed as its epilogue, such as the parliament boycott etc,” Besic explained.
She added that there was a steady growth in support for Democrats. When it comes to support for DPS, there has been a 3% increase compared to the previous survey.
Besic pointed out that the survey showed that as many as 62% of DF voters would not vote for any alliance constituent, but only for the DF as a coalition in general. According to her, this is an indicator that DF constituents lost their party identities.
About a third of respondents believe that parliament boycott is justified, whereas 30% of them say it isn’t.
Besic also said that 56% respondents believe Montenegro shall be EU member, whereas 23% of them have opposite opinion. She said that the support for EU fell compared to December 2016 when it was at 63%.
When it comes to NATO membership, 40% of citizens say Montenegro do not support membership in the alliance, 39% support it whereas 21% of citizens do not have opinion on that matter.
The survey showed that 28% of respondents are satisfied with government’s performance, while 46% of them are dissatisfied.
Besic said that citizens also assessed politicians with grades from 1 to 5. Filip Vujanovic is the most popular with average grade 2.75. He is followed by Aleksa Becic (2.72), Milo Djukanovic (2.48) and Dritan Abazovic (2.24).
She said that about 27% of respondents say that in foreign policy Montenegro should rely on the EU, about 20% believe we should rely on Russia and about 15% to the USA.
Besic said that 38.9% of respondents believe that Montenegro has taken wrong course, whereas 25.4% of them think it’s a right course.
