Montenegro's voters are casting presidential ballots on March 19 in a race between a long-dominant incumbent and a half-dozen challengers that could prove pivotal to whether the ex-Yugoslav republic can escape two years of political stalemate.
It's the first national election in the tiny Adriatic nation since the narrow defeat of President Milo Djukanovic's party to a mostly pro-Serb coalition in 2020 spelled the end of an era but failed to establish a workable majority to move the country forward.
Djukanovic feuded with two subsequent governments and resisted naming a third as he jockeyed to reestablish supremacy for his populist Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), culminating in the sudden dissolution of parliament on March 16.
"Few presidential elections in Montenegro have been as important as this one," said Kenneth Morrison, a specialist in modern Southeastern European history and politics at De Montfort University in the United Kingdom.
SEE ALSO: As Montenegrins Prepare To Vote, Djukanovic Hopes To Take Them For One Last SpinThe last comparable national choice came in 1997, he suggested, when, as prime minister, Djukanovic unseated a staunch ally of Slobodan Milosevic for the presidency to put Montenegro on the path toward independence in 2006.
"This election could be equally pivotal in that the outcome could determine the country's future trajectory," Morrison said.
Djukanovic, 61, has effectively led Montenegro as president or prime minister since 1991, when the DPS arose as the successor to the local Communist League.
He won outright five years ago with nearly 54 percent of the vote, and most experts say he is almost certain to advance to a second-round runoff on April 2 for a final presidential term under the constitution.
Since it exited its political union with Serbia and then joined NATO in 2017, Montenegro has stalled on the kind of reforms that once made it a front-runner for the next wave of EU enlargement.
It has struggled to put aside ethno-national divisions, including over identification as Serb versus Montenegrin, as well as tensions in relations with the influential Serbian Orthodox Church, politicians in Belgrade, and pro-Russians in and outside the region.
Polling in Montenegro is frequently unreliable, although some surveys have suggested that broad opposition to Djukanovic far outweighs support.
He is running on the slogan "Our President," but his three decades in power have been dogged by perceptions of rampant organized crime and corruption.
Many observers question whether Djukanovic or any other candidate can successfully bridge the 620,000-strong population's divisions.
Vesko, a voter in Podgorica who did not want his last name published, called it "a circus of a campaign."
"Everyone promises something, everything," he told RFE/RL's Balkan Service. "And everyone is sinful."
One of the most recognizable challengers is Andrija Mandic, a veteran politician who heads the right-wing New Serb Democracy party and is supported by the pro-Serb Democratic Front that helped unseat Djukanovic's DPS two and a half years ago.
Mandic was accused alongside Russians and Serbians of plotting a failed coup attempt in 2016, although an appellate court eventually threw out all 13 convictions.
Montenegro has long been one of the Balkans' most conspicuous theaters for pro-Russian disinformation.
Another candidate, pro-NATO and pro-EU Social Democratic lawmaker Draginja Vuksanovic Stankovic, won 8 percent of the vote as a presidential candidate in 2018. She is the lone woman in the race.
The pro-EU Europe Now movement is fielding candidate Jakov Milatovic, a former economic minister campaigning on boosting prosperity in a country that averaged nearly 3 percent growth for two decades before huge volatility the past three years. Europe Now shot into the national spotlight with a strong showing in last year's local elections in the capital, Podgorica, within months of being formed.
Aleksa Becic, a 35-year-old former speaker of parliament from the centrist Democratic Montenegro party, is another pro-EU candidate.
Goran Danilovic heads the conservative United Montenegro party, which has a single seat in parliament.
Internet influencer Jovan Radulovic is the political outsider among candidates and has largely avoided staking out traditional political turf.
Djukanovic set June 11 for snap parliamentary elections after his dissolution of the 81-seat Skupstina.
The DPS this time hopes to erase the razor-thin one-seat margin that the Democratic Front and its allies mustered in 2020.
Montenegrin civil activist Aleksandar Dragicevic told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that the presidential campaigns were as important for their success in winning over committed voters ahead of early parliamentary elections as picking a president.