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Roundup: Dec. 25 by-elections to decide Macedonia's next gov't

Xinhua, December 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Macedonia's state election commission (SEC) will unveil the final results of the country's snap elections on Dec. 25, it was announced Thursday.

This comes as a second round of voting was ordered in the communes of Tearce in Tetovo region on Dec 25, following the first round that took place on Dec. 11.

The Administrative Court in Macedonia decided Wednesday to accept the complaint of the main opposition party SDSM led by Zoran Zaev and order the voting process to be repeated in a poll center in Tearce, western Macedonia.

The vote in this commune may alter the result because the ruling party of Nikola Gruesvki, VMRO-DPMNE, had a slim victory against SDSM with a narrow difference of 307 votes in this constituency.

According to preliminary results, VMRO-DPMNE won the majority of seats in Macedonia's 120-seat parliament, gaining 51 seats with SDSM winning 49.

In the commune of Tearce, Gruevski won 4 seats while Zaev won 3 seats. If Zaev wins another seat on Dec. 25, national results will change as the two main parties running in these elections will have 50 seats each.

According to Macedonia's parliament, some 61 seats are needed to form government. Therefore, political parties would have to start coalition talks.

The Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) of ethnic Albanians won 10 seats in the elections.

The decision of the administrative court to repeat voting in Tearce has spurred strong debates and reactions from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party. The party warned it will not acknowledge the results of the re-voting process.

On the other hand, SDSM has restarted the electoral campaign in Tearce commune.

The European Union on Thursday called on all political parties in Macedonia to participate in the repeated voting in Tearce a peaceful manner to complete the election process in Macedonia and create a new government. Endit