Lipkovo

After another worrying peak in infections over the past few days, North Macedonia has ordered a full 80-hour lockdown of the capital, Skopje, and the towns of Tetovo, Kumanovo and Stip. Curfews there will start at 9 pm on Thursday and last until 5 am on Monday.

Macedonia's election campaign formally started on Monday and over the next 20 days the parties will be holding rallies and round tables and trying to visit as many places as they can.

Macedonian police said they had arrested one suspect in connection with the recently reported attack on a remote border post.

The suspect, aged 55 and from the border village of Brest, was found in possession of firearms and military uniforms during raids conducted over the  weekend.

Macedonian police on Tuesday said a group of 40 armed and masked gunmen wearing the markings of an Albanian paramilitary unit, the National Liberation Army, NLA, stormed a police outpost near Kosovo at 2.30 am Tuesday.

Police Spokesperson Ivo Kotevski told a press conference in Skopje that a "terrorist attack" had taken place.

The Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, has threatened to leave Macedonia's parliament in protest after one of its MPs, Orhan Ibrahimi, exchanged punches with Rexhail Ismaili, an MP from the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI.

Several other legislators then joined in the brawl.

The State Electoral Commission said that the voting went well with reports of minor irregularities.

“By 17h 41, 23 per cent of the electorate had cast their ballots” informed.

This is  considerably less than at the previous presidential poll five years ago when by this time, 48,73 percent had voted.