Roundup: Macedonia's ruling party largest winner in parliamentary elections

Macedonia's ruling party came out on top during Sunday's parliamentary elections, securing 51 seats in the parliament, and is best positioned to win a mandate to form a new government, the country's electoral authority announced Monday night.

The party VMRO DPMNE led by Nikola Gruevski won two more seats in parliament than its major rival, the SDSM, with 49 seats, said Aleksandar Chichakovski, president of the State Election Commission.

Aside from the two major parties, four smaller political groups also passed the 5-percent ballot threshold to enter parliament, with the DUI wining 10 seats, the BESA five, the Alliance for the Albanians nabbing three and the DPA garnering two.

"These are the initial official results since the parties have the right to issue their objections on the election process, and we will review (such objections if there's any)," Chichakovski said.

The winning margin of the ruling party is thin with roughly 17,000 more votes at the national level than its major rival, but potential objections are unlikely to change the outcome.

The announcement on the distribution of parliament seats came a little later than dictated by law, triggering speculations about the final outcome.

"Democracy won. The free will of the citizens won. Nikola Gruevski will have the mandate to form the new Government. We call SDSM and its leader Zoran Zaev to publicly accept the election results and congratulate us," Vlatko Gjorchev from VMRO-DPMNE stated once the results were published.

The opposition SDSM has not yet commented on the results since Sunday night when they also declared an election victory.

The tight outcome of the elections surprised many in Macedonia, since all election polls suggested a decreasing but still significant advantage for VMRO-DPMNE.

The elections also surprised many with a record-high turnout of ethnic Albanians.

"According to some assessments, we have witnessed maybe even up to 70,000 ethnic Albanian votes for the SDSM, which is a first in Macedonian election history," Tatjana Karakamisheva-Jovanovska, professor of Political System at the Faculty of Law in Skopje, told Xinhua. "No rating agency, not even the most renowned, had predicted it."

"This probably means that the agencies working on public polls might have to consider changing their model, since we clearly don't have such a strong division between the Macedonian and the ethnic Albanian electorate as we did before," she said.

Some politicians also took note of the high turnout of ethnic Albanians in the elections.

"The message is that no political party or coalition in future can hope to win seats in the Parliament without attracting some part of the Albanian vote," former Macedonian MP and presidential candidate Imer Selmani said.

To gain the mandate to form the new government, a party or coalition has to have at least 61 parliamentary seats. This means that Gruevski will have to partner with one or more of the smaller parties.

"The current ruling partners VMRO-DPMNE and DUI might form the new government, but it will be highly unstable. I would say that including all political parties that entered parliament is more likely," former speaker of the Macedonian Parliament Stojan Andov said.

According to the Macedonian Constitution, the new parliament should be formed within 20 days of the election. Ten days after that the president will give a mandate to form a government to the party that wins a majority in the parliament, and the designated prime minister has 20 days to do so.

Despite some small irregularities, elections in Macedonia went smoothly, foreign observers said Monday.

Roberto Battelli, a special coordinator from the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, called the elections "well administered."

Still, observers say that some issues related to voter registration have yet to be addressed in a sustainable manner.

However, Battelli said the high turnout testifies that voters understood the crucial role good elections play in the future of their country.

He said that the winning political establishment has a responsibility to live up to these expectations and carry on with reforms necessary for the country's future. Endi