VMRO – DPMNE candidate for president, Gjorge Ivanov, won the first round of presidential elections with 448,303 votes (51.65 %), SDSM candidate, Stevo Pendarovski, is second with 326,069 votes (37.57 %), according to preliminary unofficial results released this morning by the State Election Commission on its website.
The data relates to the processed 99.72 percent, or 3.502 of total 3512 polling stations.
DPA candidate, Ilijaz Halimi, has won 38,965 votes (4.49 %), and Zoran Popovski from GROM won 31.360 votes (3.61 %).
The first round of presidential elections had a turnout of 48.85 percent or a total of 867,985 people voted, and 1,779,572 persons have the right to vote.
SEC chairman Nikola Rilkoski at yesterday’s press conference said that the election passed peacefully with one incident registered in Negotino where an unknown person in the afternoon broke ballot box and the voting was stopped at that polling station.
SEC publishes the initial results of the voting within 12 hours, and the final 24 hours after the voting.
The second round of elections for president of state to be held on 27 April, when early parliamentary elections are scheduled as well. The two candidates who received the most votes in the first round will continue to the second round. The candidate that will win more votes will become president, if at least 40 percent of the total electorate votes.
Source: MIA