Preliminary results released on October 18 by Montenegro’s election commission (DIK), confirmed the victory of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) led by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic in the October 16 general election.

The DPS gained the largest number of votes, though a group of opposition parties is not far behind. The results announced by DIK were not accepted by the opposition, and some representatives of opposition parties walked out of DIK’s session on October 18, according to Portanalitica.me.

DIK announced that 41.42% of the votes were cast for the DPS, securing the party 36 seats in the parliament. Second came the Democratic Front (DF) with 20.27% (18 seats), followed by the Kljuc coalition with 11.06% (nine seats), Demokratska Crna Gora with 9.99% (eight seats), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) with 5.23% (four seats). The Social Democrats (SD) and the Boniak party will have two mandates each, while the coalition of Albanian parties and the Croatian Civil Initiative party will have one MP each.

“The Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro is the winner in the parliamentary election with 36 mandates and this is an indisputable fact, which cannot be opposed by the desperate attempts of the election losers to bring into question the triumph of the DPS,” the party said in a October 18 statement on its website.

It was not clear when the DIK will announce final results. The commission reported that 387,765 of all eligible Montenegrins voted on October 16, which means that the turnout was 73.33%.