North Macedonia presidential vote heads for run-off
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Following the first round of North Macedonia’s presidential election, which has been overshadowed by the country’s name change deal with Greece, none of the three candidates won support from more than 50% of registered voters.
Turnout was around 40%, the lowest since North Macedonia became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991, making a run-off vote between two pro-EU and pro-NATO candidates on May 5 inevitable.
Candidate of the ruling SDSM, Stevo Pendarovski reacts during a press conference after first round of presidentdental election in Skopje, North Macedonia.
Preliminary results showed that the governing Social Democrats’ (SDSM) candidate, Stevo Pendarovski, had won 42.85% of votes cast, nationalist VMRO runner Gordana Siljanovska-Davkov, a critic of the name deal, won 42.24% and Blerim Reka, the candidate backed by two ethnic Albanian parties, won around 11%.
The country’s electoral law requires a candidate to win support from more than 50% plus one of registered voters to win outright in the first round. The President role is mainly a symbolic one in North Macedonia but the vote was considered important in view of the recent name change.
The outgoing nationalist president, Gjeorge Ivanov, was first elected in 2009. His second term has been controversial because he refused to sign several laws, including one that expands the use of the Albanian language.
Roughly 1.8 million voters were eligible to vote at more than 3,400 polling stations.
