Republic of Macedonia

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.

The OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission to Skopje said on Monday that the polls were well administered and fundamental freedoms were respected with only “small procedural irregularities” and “instances of organized voting”, but the pre-election campaign failed to provide an even field for all political players.

Incumbent president has big lead in Macedonian election

SKOPJE -- Incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE leads in the Macedonian presidential election, having won 428,000 votes on Sunday.

89 percent of ballots were counted when this figure was announced in Skopje.

Incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov, from the ruling VMRO DPMNE party, has declared victory at Macedonia's presidential elections.

Ivanov is however not the outright winner, because although he received 51.65% of the votes, the low turnout means he gathered support from barely one-fourth of the population.

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.

Macedonians are going to the polls on Sunday in the fifth presidential elections for the country.

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.

The court on Wednesday flatly rejected all motions filed against the government backed law refusing to discuss the 14 disputed provisions that mainly tackled the time span of the law and the range of professions subjected to checkups.

“A procedure is not opened for the articles 1, 3, 4, 14, 15, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36 and 40” the court’s press service informed briefly.

A railway line connecting Bulgaria and Macedonia may be launched in 2022, Macedonian Transport Minister Mile Janakieski said, Tuesday.