A recently formed centrist party is expected to finish first place in Montenegro's general election despite a political fund scandal involving disgraced Terraform Labs co-founder Kwon Do-hyeong that broke out just days before the election.

According to the Associated Press and Reuters, the Europe Now Movement is projected to win the early parliamentary election held Sunday, with unofficial results saying the pro-EU group won some 26 percent of the vote, not enough to form a government on its own, while the coalition led by the Democratic Party of Socialists of former President Milo Djukanovic got slightly over 23 percent. The state election commission is to announce the official results in the coming days. 

As the polls closed, the turnout was just over 56 percent.

On June 8, a bombshell announcement came from the country's prime minister who exposed a letter he claimed to have received from Kwon Do-hyeong who insisted in the letter that he has been providing illegal political funds to Milojko Spajić, the head of the Europe Now party since they first met in 2018.

Under Montenegrin law, foreigners cannot make donations to a political party or provide funds to a campaign, and all donations must be reported to the state. 

Spajić, in his defense, acknowledged that he and his former employer had invested in Terraform in early 2018, but denied having received any illegal political funds, and called the scandal a conspiracy to prevent his party's victory in the election. 

The exposure sparked a massive scandal in Montenegro, drawing keen interest on what impact it may have on the election.