EU: We expect a democratic election process in North Macedonia on May 8

2024-04-27 21:52:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The ambassador of the European Union in Skopje, David Geer, said on Saturday that the bloc expects to have democratic and regular elections in North Macedonia on May 8, when the second round of presidential elections will be held, as well as parliamentary elections simultaneously.

The opposition candidate Gordana Silanovska-Davkova won the first round of the presidential elections on Wednesday convincingly but not enough to avoid the second round, where on May 8 she will face the current president, Stevo Pendarovski.

Geer said he hopes that the second part of the election campaign and the dual elections will pass in a democratic and peaceful spirit, as the OSCE/ODIHR assessed the first round in its preliminary report.

"The most important thing is...in the first round, the elections took place in a generally calm and democratic atmosphere. And, we very much hope that in the second round of the presidential elections, as well as in the campaign for the parliamentary elections, everyone will commit to finish the process through positive messages in the campaign", said Geer.

He has not commented on the rumors that there may be a boycott of the presidential elections in the second round in order not to reach the exit threshold of 40 percent, in order to fail the process.

"Any other political issue related to the elections, I hope you understand that I will not comment on it at this stage. It is up to the citizens to decide the future of the country", he added.

Seven candidates competed in the first round, including two Albanians, who did not manage to win enough votes to secure the second round.

Bujar Osmani from the European Front got 13.36 percent of the votes, while Arben Taravari from the opposition coalition VLEN got 9.21 percent of the votes.

Unofficial announcements speak of a boycott of SDSM, but also of DUI, even though the party led by Ali Ahmeti has said that they will come out with a position on how they will act in the second round.

From the opposition coalition VLEN, they said that they will not call for a boycott, since the voters are the ones who have to decide which candidate they will vote for.

Osmani and Taravari won about 210,000 votes together in the first round and it is believed that, in their absence in the second round, the Albanian votes could play a decisive role in the presidential race between Davkova and Pendarovski, as it happened five years ago. ./ REL