Macedonia’s Ivanov poised for election win

By Neil MacDonald in Belgrade

Gorge Ivanov, the conservative candidate, looked set to win the Republic of Macedonia’s presidential elections on Sunday with a voter turnout just high enough to avoid repeating the polls.

His victory would cement the power of Nikola Gruevski, the prime minister, making a compromise even more unlikely in the former Yugoslav republic’s 18-year “name dispute” with Greece.

By early evening on Sunday, with one hour left before the close of polls, turnout had reached 39.37 per cent of the country’s 1.8 million registered voters for the presidential contest, according to election monitors.

A turnout of over 40 per cent is needed for the election to be valid.

Enthusiasm for the second round was low among ethnic Albanians, roughly a quarter of the population. The Social Democrat-backed Ljubomir Frckovski, the other challenger, who passed the first round on March 22, said he hoped to pick up their votes to give him the edge over Mr Ivanov in the run-off.

Voting was ”generally calm, but with more problems” than two weeks ago, including open vote buying and a few instances of ballot stuffing, according to a poll monitor in the north-western city of Tetovo.

Nato and the European Union, which officially accepted the fragile country as a candidate four years ago, urged all parties to prevent violence. Gun fights marred early parliamentary elections last year.