Social Democrats

In an interview for Kurir news website, published on Friday, Nikola Gruevski said he plans to tender his resignation as leader of VMRO DPMNE soon, regardless of the outcome of ongoing party analysis about its defeat in the October local elections and earlier general election.

Romania's ruling Social Democrat Party chief Liviu Dragnea was called in for questioning on Monday by anti-graft prosecutors at the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, DNA.

Prosecutors say Dragnea is a suspect in an investigation into fraud involving European Union funds when he was acting head of Teleorman County Council.  

The second round of voting on Sunday won't change the big picture from the first round, at which the main ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, won a big victory over their bitter opponents from the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party - but the contest in the ethnic Albanian bloc is expected to be a lot more exciting.

FYROM's (Macedonia) ruling Social Democrats (SDSM) have won a sweeping victory in the first round of local elections and delivered a severe blow to the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party that ruled much of the country for more than a decade.

Austrians are voting in a general election in which the frontrunner, conservative People's Party (ÖVP) leader Sebastian Kurz, is just 31.

The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and Social Democrats are competing for second place, opinion polls suggest.

The Social Democrats led the outgoing coalition with the ÖVP.

On Sunday, local elections are being held in Macedonia, which is a test for the new left-wing government five months after it came to power in an acute political crisis after a decade of conservative government, the Associated Press reported.

As the two leading candidates for the post of Mayor of Skopje try to woo ethnic Albanian voters ahead of the vote on October 15, both are avoiding the kind of divisive ethnic language that marred last year's general elections.

The international community should stop using force to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina artificially alive and allows its peoples self-determination, Heinz-Christina Strache, a leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, FPO, said in an interview.

Gjorgi Lazarevski, one of three former Macedonian secret policemen who are credited with handed over wiretapped recordings of official conversations to the then opposition leader, Zoran Zaev, said he was delighted that his actions had exposed and ultimately brought down the government of Nikola Gruevski.

Slovenian President Borut Pahor, former head of the center-left Social Democrats and a one-time prime minister, is likely to win a second five-year mandate in an election on Oct. 22, a poll published by the Delo newspaper on Monday showed, Reuters reported.