Djukanovic told ecstatic supporters in Podgorica, the capital of the tiny republic: „Let me congratulate you on a great victory.“ Election officials earlier said that with 72.7 percent of the votes counted after Sunday‘s elections, Djukanovic‘s reformist coalition had polled 50.4 percent of the votes cast. The republic‘s election commission said Djukanovic‘s socialist rival Momir Bulatovic took 34.3 percent of the votes while another grouping, the liberal alliance, came third with 6.3 percent. The repudiation of Bulatovic, a former Montenegrin president, was a severe blow to Yugoslavia‘s President Slobodan Milosevic, who has waged a tactical war against Djukanovic and the Western-backed reformers. Montenegro has equal status with bigger Serbia in the Yugoslav federation where Milosevic has resisted the economic and political reforms that have transformed eastern Europe since the fall of communism almost a decade ago. Djukanovic‘s „Coalition for a Better Life“ captured towns and rural areas previously loyal to Bulatovic, who was made Yugoslav prime minister by Milosevic this month in an attempt to shore up his weakening political base.