Podgorica - Milo Djukanovic has done it again: In spite of the woes of much of Montenegro's economy that trouble most voters, he will serve a sixth term as prime minister. In late 2008, the tiny former Yugoslav republic faced the faced the collapse of the aluminium combine KAP, a shaking banking system, a deflated financial market and drying financial resources.
Djukanovic, however, went ahead and set early polls for March and won with unprecedented ease, shredding the opposition.
Observers agree that with rivals - including those within his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) - under control, the 47-year-old who became Europe's youngest premier when he was first elected in 1991, may carry on effectively unchallenged over the next four years.
The 2-metre-tall, impeccably dressed career politician survived the threat of an Italian criminal prosecution over cross-Adriatic cigarette smuggling and only last week weathered a storm caused by reports of his allegedly shadowy personal wealth of an estimated 14.7 million euros (20.6 million dollars).
Djukanovic has shrugged off media reports that his Djukanovic's brother Aco has amassed in the region of 167 million dollars over the past two decades as "lies" sown by political rivals.
Djukanovic has shown himself to be a "political chameleon" with leadership and survival qualities, and an ability to transform his position without losing credibility among the majority of voters.
Two decades ago, he was a dogmatic young Communist who backed former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade and steered Podgorica to involvement in Yugoslav wars, ordering the army across the border into neighbouring Croatia in 1991.
Six years later, he turned away from Milosevic, if not from the rump Yugoslavia, and won the support of the West. By the turn of the millennium, he became a Montenegrin "sovereignist", and three years ago, pushed the separation from Serbia through in a tense referendum.
The goal he has adopted and imposed on his nation over the past 10 years or so is membership of the European Union and NATO.
Through all the turmoil, Djukanovic has had one major failure: He tried but did not succeed in leaving the political limelight to run a business after securing independence for Montenegro.
Multiplying reports of an imminent prosecution over his shadowy enterprises and signs of a mutiny within the DPS forced him to return in early 2008 - allowing him to bring the party to order and get his immunity back.
With the threat of prosecution gone and the party quiet, commentators say, Djukanovic may have another go at retirement from high profile politics in 2011.
