North Macedonia’s opposition declares victory in elections

North Macedonia's conservative opposition VMRO-DPMNE coalition declared victory Wednesday in both presidential and parliamentary elections.

According to preliminary results, the VMRO-DPMNE coalition has won 42.88% or more than 356,000 votes with 85.71% of the ballots counted so far.

The Social Democrats, who have been in power for seven years, have won 14.82% of the vote.

The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) led by Ali Ahmeti has won 14.30% of the vote, and another ethnic Albanian party, VLEN, came fourth with 11.21%.

Also, the anti-Western Left party won 6.87% and the ZNAM party of former Social Democrat Maksim Dimitrievski won 5.26%, while other parties and lists won less than 1%.

North Macedonia held parliamentary elections and a presidential runoff on Wednesday.

Some 1.8 million registered voters were expected to cast their ballots from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (0600-1800GMT) to elect 120 members for a four-year term in the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia, the country's unicameral parliament. Three more seats are reserved for expatriates.

They also had to choose between Stevo Pendarovski or Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova as the next president.

Siljanovska-Davkova has won 64.80% of the vote while Pendarovski won 29.21%.

The post of the president is largely ceremonial in the country, so more attention is focused on the parliamentary battle, which could prove critical in how North Macedonia proceeds with regard to its European Union membership, which has been pending since 2005.