(6 Apr 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Various of street scenes and election billboards showing candidates
2. Wide of polling station
3. Queue of people waiting to go in
4. Various of woman voting
5. Various of man voting
6. People waiting outside polling station
7. SOUNDBITE: (Serbian) Radovan Leic, voter:
"I hope everything goes by peacefully and the Montenegrin people hope the best wins, the one who is going to take us to Europe."
8. Close-up of list of candidates
9. Wide of traffic on street
STORYLINE
Montenegrins voted on Sunday in the tiny Balkan state's first presidential election since it split from Serbia two years ago.
The ballot was a test for Montenegro's reformed socialists, who have ruled virtually unchallenged for the past 20 years.
It will also determine whether the nation of 620-thousand people cements its independence or slides back to Serbia's influence.
Incumbent Filip Vujanovic of the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists has been regarded as the likely winner of the four-man race.
Nebojsa Medojevic of the liberal Movement for Changes, and pro-Serbian challengers Andrija Mandic and Srdjan Milic were expected to split the rest of the votes in a deeply divided country, according to pre-election surveys.
"I hope everything goes by peacefully and the Montenegrin people hope the best wins, the one who is going to take us to Europe," said one voter, Radovan Leic, after casting his vote in Podgorica.
Ethnic Serbs, about 30 percent of Montenegro's population, have been unhappy about the country's split from Serbia in a May 2006 referendum.
They have sought closer political and economic ties with Belgrade, which have been chilly since the break-up.
The vote took place against the backdrop of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in February, with pro-Serbian challengers vowing never to recognise Kosovo's independence if they get elected.
Montenegro was an independent kingdom before World War I, then part of Yugoslavia until that nation disintegrated in violence in 1991.
Montenegro remained joined with Serbia until it seceded peacefully.
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