All News on Politics in Macedonia

Preliminary results from Sunday’s presidential election in Macedonia suggest that Ivanov, who is running for a second five-year term for the ruling VMRO DPMNE party, is leading the count, ahead of his main rival, Stevo Pendarovski who is running for the opposition Social Democrats.

The State Electoral Commission, said that 95 per cent of the votes have been counted so  far.

Polling stations will be open until 7pm Sunday.

This is the country’s fifth presidential election since Macedonia became independent in the 1990s.

For the purposes of the presidential vote, the country and the diaspora are considered a single electoral unit.

Campaigning for the presidential election will halt in Macedonia ahead of Sunday, when more than 1.7 million registered voters will choose between four candidates.

Voters will choose between incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov who is running for a second five-year term for the ruling VMRO DPMNE party and three other hopefuls.

At their respective general election starting rallies at the weekend, government and opposition parties exchanged accusations on a scale not seen in the gentler presidential race that started two weeks earlier.

One week before the first round of Macedonian presidential elections, all four presidential candidate took part in an unexpected debate hosted by state television.

The hour-and-a-half debate on issues ranging from Macedonia disputed name to the economy failed to catch fire, however, and was dogged by long monologues that were deemed monotonous by many viewers and observers.

ATHENS - Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Mrkic told Tanjug on Saturday that a majority of EU member countries have demonstrated understanding for Serbia's stand on the issue of crisis in Ukraine.

The state office tasked with rooting out former informants said it has checked all 1,500 political party candidates for the 123-seat parliament and established that none of them collaborated with the intelligence services in the Communist era.