Politics of North Macedonia

At a press conference, Zaev said that based on 98.28 percent of votes, SDSM-DUI candidate Stevo Pendarovski had won 321,201 votes, while opposition VMRO DPMNE's candidate Gordana Siljanovska received 316,872 votes.

Polls opened early Sunday in North Macedonia for a presidential election seen as a key test for the government following the country's changing its name to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece over the use of the term "Macedonia".

More than 3,400 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and will close at 7 p.m. (1700GMT).

The elected will be the first head of state after the change of name of our Southwest neighbor, reported NOVA TV. 

The Republic of Northern Macedonia officially launches the election campaign for the upcoming presidential elections.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras recognized that achieving the agreement which ended a decades-old dispute with North Macedonia on its name had a political cost on the government, in an interview with North Macedonian news agency MIA, ahead of his visit to Skopje on Tuesday.

I first visited Skopje in 1997 to attend a peace concert by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. It had all the elements to become a charming city with a strong modernist identity, expanding on the reconstruction that was carried out with the help of Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis after the devastating earthquake in 1963.