The State Election Commission (DIK) informed at its press conference on Monday that mayors of 32 municipalities had been elected in the first round of the local elections. In 45 municipalities, the mayors will be elected in the second round of the local elections, while the processing of the votes has still not been completed in eight municipalities.
DIK Chairman Aleksandar Novakovski informed that so far the votes have been counted in 495 polling places in Skopje, which is 92.35 percent of the electorate in Macedonia’s capital. A total of 226,466 inhabitants of Skopje or 50.25 percent of the voters exercised their right to vote at the local elections on Sunday. VMRO-DPMNE candidate for mayor of Skopje Koce Trajanovski, who won 98,146 votes, and NSDP and SDSM candidate Tito Petkovski, who won 57,568 votes, will run in the second round of the elections for mayor of Skopje. BDI candidate for mayor of Skopje Shefket Zekoli is third with 24,294 votes, while New Democracy candidate Argtim Nagavci is fourth with 13,058 votes.
DIK stressed that the voter turnout at the presidential election was 1,011,441 or 56.44 percent of the total electorate. Following the processing of the votes at 2,823 polling places or 94.86 percent of the electorate, VMRO-DPMNE presidential candidate Gjorgje Ivanov leads with 343,374 votes or 35.06 percent, while SDSM presidential candidate Ljubomir Frckoski is second with 200,316 votes or 20.45 percent. New Democracy candidate Imer Selmani is third with 146,795 votes or 14.99 percent; independent presidential candidate Ljube Boskoski won 145,638 votes or 14.87 percent; BDI presidential candidate Agron Buxhaku won 73,567 votes or 7.51 percent; LDP presidential candidate Nano Ruzin won 39,645 votes or 4.05 percent; and PDSH presidential candidate Mirushe Hoxha won 30,281 votes or 3.09 percent. According to these results, Ivanov and Frckoski will run for president in the second round of the presidential election.
Voting was not held in 134 polling places, but this will not affect the final results. The participants in the elections have 48 hours to submit possible complaints to DIK. If DIK establishes that the complaints are well founded, it will present the same to the Administrative Court. After the court rules on these complaints, DIK will release the final results. DIK has not received any complaints so far. The second round of the elections will be held in 14 days.