The international community closely watched Macedonia yesterday as it started a partial repeat of the marred June 1 snap parliamentary poll, which may turn out to be crucial for the country’s European outlook.
The rerun of the vote was ordered in some 200 polling stations hit by violence and major irregularities. One person was killed in election-related violence and several others wounded two weeks ago.
The EU scolded membership candidate Macedonia over how the election was organized and warned that elections in line with democratic standards were a condition for the start of accession talks.
The European Commission representative in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, said yesterday’s vote was Macedonia’s “last chance.”
“Party leaders have to understand that every act of violence, of intimidation and each fired shot is an attack on the democratic values of the country and an act that undermines its future,” he said ahead of the vote.
Macedonia won the status of membership candidate in 2005 but has since made little progress owing to slow reforms.
Of the 1.78 million registered voters in Macedonia, some 160,000 were eligible to vote yesterday. The repeat vote was ordered in areas where the 25 percent Albanian minority dominates.
Two weeks ago Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s nationalist VMRO-DPMNE won an absolute majority in the 120-seat assembly.
The rerun could swing the outcome from June 1, when the opposition Democratic Union for Integrations soundly defeated Gruevski’s coalition partners, the Democratic Party of Albanians.
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