state electoral commission

If preparations run to schedule, the earliest possible date for the crucial referendum on Macedonia's name will be September 16, or maybe September 23, a well-informed source from the main ruling Social Democrats told BIRN on condition of anonymity.

Montenegro's electoral commission said on Tuesday that it will request an official investigation into over 300 claims that false signatures were used to validate the candidacies of three of the opposition candidates in the country's April 15 presidential elections.  

The state electoral commission last week put the statements about the assets owned by some politicians back on its website, but critics expressed suspicions about its accuracy because there is no one to check the data.

Only the statements submitted by elected representatives like MPs are on the site; the assets of appointed representatives like government ministers remain private.

Eight out of nine members of the State Electoral Commission tendered their resignations to parliament this week, mostly citing moral reasons, after a scandal over their bonus payments for October's local elections sparked public outrage.

Macedonia's main opposition leader cried foul over local election results after gains for the ruling party in a second round of polls on Sunday, and demanded a snap parliamentary vote, reported Reuters. 

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's party successfully passed its first serious test on Sunday, winning the local elections in the country, reports Mediapool. 

The turnout in today's elections in Macedonia is 27.11% at 13:00 local time, the State Electoral Commission announced.

The spokesperson of the Electoral Commission Ljubka Guguchevska said that in Skopje the activity is 29.17%.

On Sunday, October 15, local elections will be held in the Republic of Macedonia. There are 1,814,644 people entitled to vote. Of these, 1,735,682 voters live in the country, and the remaining 77,071 voters live abroad. They will vote in a total of 3480 polling stations, reported BGNES.

Macedonia's opposition VMRO DPMNE party is pushing to hold local referendums on the same day in October as the local elections, on a supposed government plan to settle thousands of migrants from the Middle East in various towns.

Thousands of people gathered in Belgrade and Novi Sad on Wednesday evening to protest against the rule of President-Elect and current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, which they describe as a "dictatorship".

More protesters are expected to join the demonstrations during the course of the evening.