Montenegrin presidential election, February 2003

Early presidential elections were held in the Republic of Montenegro on 9 February 2003, after the December 2002 elections had been declared invalid due to insufficient voter turnout.^[1] Although Filip Vujanović won the election with 85% of the vote, turnout was less than the required 50%, so the election was declared invalid.^[1] Fresh elections were called for May 2003, when the turnout rule was abolished.

The low turnout was caused by an opposition boycott, voters being disillusioned with politics, and poor weather conditions on polling day which resulted in 80 polling stations in mountainous areas being closed due to snow.^[2]

Results

Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Filip Vujanović	DPS–SDP	174,536	84.82
Dragan Hajduković	Independent	14,556	7.07
Aleksandar Vasiljević	Serbian Radical Party	8,734	4.24
Milan Radulović	Natural Law Party	3,218	1.56
Jovan Pejović	Independent	1,076	0.52
Milan Šparović	Independent	1,037	0.50
Obrad Marković	Yugoslav Communists	894	0.43
Milivoje Bakić	Independent	942	0.46
Ilija Darmanović	Serbian Radical Party of Montenegro	780	0.38
Mihailo Marković	Independent	456	0.22
Đorđije Milić	Independent	312	0.15
Invalid/blank votes		7,001	–
Total		212,781	100
Registered voters/turnout		456,981	46.56
Source: IFES

References

1. Republic of Montenegro Presidential Election of 2002-2003 Adam Carr
2. Montenegro poll fails BBC News, 9 February 2003