North Macedonia holds presidential elections

2024-04-24 07:54:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The citizens of North Macedonia went to the ballot boxes on Wednesday to elect the president of the state.

According to the State Election Commission (SEC), 1,814,317 voters have the right to vote, who must choose between seven candidates for president of North Macedonia.

In the race are the current president, Stevo Pendarovski, who has been proposed by the coalition for "European Future", which is led by the Social Democratic League (LSDM).

The Macedonian opposition, which is led by VMRO DPMNE, participates in the elections with Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, who also competed in the 2019 elections.

Albanian parties compete with two candidates.

The European Front, under the leadership of the Democratic Union for Integration (BDI) competes with Bujar Osmani, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs. The united Albanian opposition, which makes up the VLEN coalition, participates in the elections with Arben Taravar, the current mayor of the municipality of Gostivar.

Maksim Dimitrievski, the mayor of the municipality of Kumanova, Stevçe Jakimovski, the mayor of the Karposh district in Skopje, and Biljana Vankovska, candidate of the "Left" party, are also part of the election race.

According to the legal provisions, in the first round it is almost impossible to elect the president, since a candidate must receive more than half of the votes of those registered on the electoral list, or half of the votes of over 1.8 million voters. In the second round, the two candidates with the most votes pass, while the winner is elected the candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the votes, provided that more than 40 percent of the electorate turn out for the election.

In all presidential elections so far, a census of at least 40 percent has been ensured.

The electoral campaign lasted 20 days and was accompanied by numerous accusations between the candidates.

The first results are expected to be published after the ballot boxes close at 19:00.

They, as in the previous election cycles, will first be published by the candidates' staffs, while the SEC will publish them no later than midnight on April 24.

The SEC has called for free and democratic elections, to prove, as they said, that North Macedonia can organize elections according to European standards.

In this direction, the presidential candidates have also signed a code for fair and democratic elections, and for content from labels and hate speech.

The topics that have dominated the campaign were mainly related to European integrations, amending the Constitution to include the Bulgarian minority in its preamble, the fight against organized crime and corruption, the situation in the judiciary and Russian influence in North Macedonia and the region. At the same time, these elections are considered very important for the political parties, since the result they will achieve will be a test for the parliamentary elections, which will be held on May 8, together with the second round of the presidential elections.

The State Election Commission has so far accredited 342 domestic observers, 517 foreign and international observers, 51 translators and 32 foreign journalists.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of North Macedonia will also supervise the election process.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not announced the number of police officers engaged in the voting centers, but this department has said earlier that special attention will be paid to the process in the western part of the country./ Rel