Nikola Gruevski

Days before Sunday’s early general and presidential elections in Macedonia, the opposition Social Democratic Party, the SDSM, has presented documents from the land registry that it says show the ruling party recently purchased over 20 apartments, office spaces and building lots worth some €1.6 million.

With less than a week to go before the April 27 general election, Macedonia's ruling VMRO DPMNE party has released a set of four video adverts, featuring young professional singers of the national opera and ballet house, the MOB.

In the videos, the singers call on people to give VMRO DPMNE a comfortable majority in parliament.

The recording released amid a tense election campaign in Macedonia comes a day after opposition Social Democrats accused Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of taking a bribe of €1.5 million for expediting the sale of Makedonska Banka AD to Serbian businessman Jovica Stefanovic, aka “Gazda Nini” ["Boss Nini"] in 2004.

Macedonia's opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, has accused Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of selling Makedonska Banka AD to a controversial Serbian businessman, Jovica Stefanovic, known as “Gazda Nini” ["Boss Nini"] for a bribe.

Macedonian police said they would charge six people over a brawl that took place on Tuesday in Skopje’s Lisice district between supporters of the main ruling VMRO DPMNE party and the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM.

The affray erupted moments after the opposition Social Democrat presidential candidate, Stevo Pendarovski, left the area.

The head of Macedonia's main opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, Zoran Zaev, said his party would soon provide evidence of election fraud on the part of the government of Nikola Gruevski whose VMRO DPMNE party is endorsing Ivanov’s candidacy for a second term.

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.

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.