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Macedonia's ruling party wins general election
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by Dave Keating | June 1, 2008 at 11:22 pm
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After an election day that was marred by violence, Macedonia's ruling party has emerged victorious in yesterday's elections. Even though the voting ended with a clear winner, it's thought that the images of election day violence yesterday will exacerbate divisions within the country and delay its progress toward EU membership.
Macedonia's Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski won a landslide victory on Sunday in the country's first early election since the country gained independence in 1991.
President of the state electoral commission Jovan Josifovski said the VMRO-DPMNE party led by Gruevski had won 48.13 percent of the votes, far ahead of the Social Democrats' 22.19 percent, with votes from 82 percent of polling stations counted.
The Democratic Party of Albanians led by Menduh Thaci garnered 10.13 percent, while the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Independence got 11.26 percent.
"If this trend continues, our coalition will win over 60 parliamentary seats," Gruevski said. Macedonia's parliament has 120 seats.
But Sunday's election was marred by violence and irregularities. One man was shot dead, several others wounded in shootouts.
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at 09:19 on June 2nd, 2008
UPDATE: International election monitors have noted "serious violations" in the poll. The OSCE said the vote was marked by violence, intimidation and ballot box stuffing in predominantly ethnic Albanian areas.