Verkiezingen Macedonië vreedzaam verlopen (en)
Macedonia on Sunday (22 March) voted in presidential and local elections seen as crucial for its EU bid, with no sign of the violence that marked last year's parliamentary elections.
"The elections were conducted in a good atmosphere, without incidents and with no major irregularities," electoral commission chief Aleksandar Novakovski was quoted as saying by AFP after polling stations closed on Sunday.
Gjorge Ivanov, the ruling conservative party's candidate (VMRO-DPMNE), led in the race, obtaining nearly 38 percent of the votes, followed by Ljubomir Frckoski of the main opposition Social Democrats (SDSM), who got around 20 percent, according to first results reported by Macedonian news agency Makfax.
Former interior minister Ljube Boskoski, who was last year acquitted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague and is now running as independent candidate, came third with around 16.5 percent.
The final results are to be announced later on Monday, but a runoff will most certainly take place on 5 April, as Mr Ivanov fell short of obtaining a clear majority in the first round.
The elections in the Balkan country - which has been an EU candidate since 2005, but has yet to start EU membership negotiations - were followed closely by the EU.
"This is probably the last opportunity for quite some time for the country to show that it has not only the capacity, but also the political will, to organise elections in line with international standards," the EU's representative in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, was quoted as saying by the BBC.
'A calm and positive atmosphere'
Earlier this month, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn had also called the elections a "moment of truth" for Macedonia and the "key outstanding condition" for Skopje to be allowed to start EU accession talks. A dispute with Greece over its name has also caused problems for Macedonia's EU and NATO bids.
Mr Rehn's comments came after violent incidents marked the general elections in the country last year, killing one person and wounding several others in an ethnic Albanian area.
Some 8,500 police officers were deployed on Sunday in order to prevent any recurrence of the June 2008 shootings.
"It seems that everything was in order ...It was a calm and positive atmosphere," Mr Fouere said.
"For this I would like to congratulate the electoral board and especially the voters who despite the bad weather came out to vote," he added.
Heavy snow disrupted the voting in some parts of the country, postponing the process in over a hundred polling stations. The overall turnout still surpassed 50 percent, however.
Local polls for mayors and city councils were also held simultaneously.
An assessment report is to be issued later on Monday by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the elections.
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