Ruling VMRO-DPMNE Scores Expected Win in Macedonia's Early Elections

Nikola Gruevski will remain Prime Minister of Macedonia as his party VMRO-DPMNE scored a victory in Sunday's early general elections. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The ruling center-right party VMRO-DPMNE of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has won expectedly the early parliamentary elections in Macedonia on Sunday.

VMRO-DPMNE got about 40% of the votes vs. 32.6% for the opposition Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia, after counting 63.3% of the cast votes at about midnight local time (CET).

The ethnic Albanian party Democratic Union for Integration, which is in the ruling coalition with VMRO-DPMNE, led by Ali Ahmeti, received 10.58% of the votes. The other major ethnic Albanian party – Democratic Party of Albanians – got 4.9%.

The National Democratic Revival Party has 2.61%, while the VMRO-People's Party led by former Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupco Georgievski got 2.59%.

"Our fatherland is a good hand. Gruevski will remain Prime Minister," declared Vlatko Gercev from VMRO-DPMNE at the first press conference after the elections in Skopje Sunday night, as cited by BGNES.

In his words, even though the exact distribution of seats in the 120-member Macedonian Parliament is still unclear, VMRO-DPMNE will have 55 MPs vs 39 for the opposition Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia.

Sunday's parliamentary elections are the seventh in Macedonia's history since it declared independence in 1991.

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