> despite widespread accusations and suspicions of corruption, nepotism, and even drug trafficking, he is our ally... and hence not a dictator

Being a dictator means [1] to have absolute power. There are dictators that are friendly with the west and others that are not so much. Use of the term is orthogonal to whether or not a given country is an ally (other than that word choice can have ramifications)

Montenegro is regarded by a number of rankings [2] as being a hybrid regime, i.e. somewhere in between authoritarian and democratic. The results of the 2020 election [3] match that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime#Measurement

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Montenegrin_parliamentary...