state electoral commission

The conservative opposition party in Croatia has narrowly won the country's first election since joining the European Union (EU) in 2013, as the country grapples with economic hardships and an influx of migrants. 

Croatia is entering one of the shortest election campaigns in its history after President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic on Monday set polling day for November 8.

Now the date of the vote has been confirmed, the parties and independent candidates have 14 days to submit their applications to the State Electoral Commission, which will accept and publish all valid lists within 48 hours.

Political party representatives expect a deal between the government and opposition on a set of electoral reforms to be reached by the end of this week at the latest.

A deadline of October 6 was set by the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, during his last visit to Macedonia last month.

The cross-party working group that meets under the guidance of the former Belgian MP and expert Peter Vanhoutte has halted work on pinpointing key reforms and is to go on a summer break until August 17.

After one postponed meeting and one unofficial get-together, Macedonia's inter-party working group tasked with implementing reforms that should lead the country out of its political crisis is expected to start work properly on Monday.

Personnel changes and a boost to the powers of several important state offices are on the table of the inter-party working groups monitored by Brussels, which started work at last week after the government and opposition on Wednesday agreed on the formation of an interim government and early elections to be held on April 24.

The alliance formed by the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, Croatian Peasant Party, HSS, Croatian Party of Rights Dr. Ante Starčević, HSP AS, and three other minor parties won 41.42 percent of the vote.

Its win gives the grouping six of the 11 seats in the parliament reserved for Croatia, which joined the European Union on July 1 last year.

Newly elected opposition legislators did not appear on Wednesday at the State Electoral Commission, SEC, to receive their certificates to sit in the 123-member parliament.

The central committee of National Democratic Rebirth, NDR, an ethnic Albanian party headed by former Gostivar mayor Rufi Osmani, said it would not participate in the next parliament, calling last week’s elections illegitimate.

Macedonia's centre-right VMRO DPMNE comfortably won a fourth term in office and Ivanov secured the presidency for the second time, but the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, claimed that the snap parliamentary polls and second-round presidential elections were fraudulent, setting the scene for fresh political discord in the country.