Macedonians vote in snap parliamentary elections

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia

Macedonian voters head to the polls Sunday in early parliamentary elections to determine the new government for the next four years.

Nearly 1.8 million registered voters will vote in the country's fourth snap elections since 2008 in 3,480 polling stations and 46 abroad. According to the electoral commission, 1,092 candidates are racing for 123 seats in the Macedonian parliament.

The elections are being held two years ahead of schedule, in accordance with the agreement to end the crisis that has marred the political scene in recent months.

The snap elections came after nationalist leader Nikola Gruevski's resignation, following a wiretapping scandal.

Since February 2015, opposition head Zoran Zaev has released scores of recordings, purporting to demonstrate that then-embattled prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, and then-intelligence chief, Saso Mijalkov, ordered the illegal surveillance of up to 20,000 people, including government ministers and journalists.

The ensuing political crisis was thought to have been brought to an end in July 2015, when an EU-mediated agreement was reached between the leaders of the four parliamentary political parties.

Under the agreement, Gruevski was to resign at the end of 2015, and the country would head to early parliamentary elections this April. Gruevski resigned on Jan. 14, 2016.

The elections were rescheduled to June 5 as certain criteria were not met, but Macedonian MPs voted to delay them again by a large majority in May.

U.S and EU envoys had urged Macedonia to agree on a new election date as a key to solve the longstanding crisis triggered by the wiretapping scandals.

The first unofficial results are expected around midnight, but final results will not be available until until Tuesday.

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) led by former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) led by Zoran Zaev are the two major parties going into these elections.

Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, and since 2005 has been an EU candidate country.