Montenegrin reformers will have an outright majority in parliament after a decisive election victory over loyalists of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
With 94 per cent of the vote in Sunday's elections counted, the election commission said a reform coalition led by the republic's President Milo Djukanovic had a 49.5 per cent share.
Mr Djukanovic's main rival, Milosevic protege Mr Momir Bulatovic, had 36.07 per cent and the Liberal Alliance 6 per cent.
The coalition is expected to win 40-41 seats in the 78-member parliament, with 30-31 for Mr Bulatovic's Socialist People's Party (SNP). Mr Djukanovic can also expect the support of Liberal and Albanian deputies to strengthen his majority.
The fairness of the elections was praised by observers of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as a "significant improvement" on previous polls in the Yugoslav republic.
Senior officials of Mr Bulatovic's socialist party said they would accept their defeat despite pre-election allegations that the poll was unfair.
Mr Djukanovic (35), a former communist, told ecstatic supporters in Podgorica: "This is not our final word. Our final victory will be when democracy wins throughout Yugoslavia."
The repudiation of Mr Bulatovic, a former Montenegrin president and now federal prime minister, was a severe blow to Mr Milosevic, who waged a tactical war against Mr Djukanovic and the western-backed reformers.
Montenegro has equal status with bigger Serbia in the Yugoslav federation where Mr Milosevic has resisted the economic and political reforms that have transformed eastern Europe.
"I am very happy that Montenegro has again shown that it has the wisdom, courage and resolve to resolutely resist those who had decided to enslave it," Mr Djukanovic told supporters.
Voting was apparently free of serious incidents apart from a shooting in Podgorica where a man armed with a hunting rifle wounded five Djukanovic supporters celebrating in a bar.
The Serbian and Montenegrin parliaments send an equal number of deputies to the upper house of the federal parliament which elected Mr Milosevic and can vote him out of office.
Mr Milosevic is protected for the moment by a solid majority in the lower house, but Mr Djukanovic's unexpected new influence in the upper house could disrupt the federal government.
Mr Djukanovic, a former communist ally of Mr Bulatovic and Mr Milosevic during the 1991-92 disintegration of former Yugoslavia, later turned against them. He complained that Montenegro as a dependent Yugoslav republic was forced to suffer for Mr Milosevic's post-war confrontations with the West which kept crippling UN economic sanctions in place.
One of Mr Djukanovic's favourite campaign slogans was: "Do you want to live under the dictatorship of Milosevic, shackled to the bottom of the world, or to live like proud people in a free and democratic state integrated in the international community?"