Macedonia's center-right opposition leader Nikola Gruevski yesterday claimed victory in parliamentary elections seen as a crucial test of the Balkan country's bid for EU and NATO membership.
"The citizens of Macedonia showed their maturity and made the right decision," the leader of the center-right VMRO-DPMNE party told a post-election rally in Skopje following Wednesday's vote.
"Tonight we might celebrate for a while and then work is waiting for us," Gruevski said as party supporters took to the streets of the capital's downtown area.
PHOTO: AFP
"Macedonia lost a lot of time in the last 15 years of transition. We have to form a government quickly," the former finance minister said.
Minutes earlier Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski accepted defeat.
"The opposition got the most votes and support of the citizens," said Buckovski, the leader of the Social Democratic Union, which was the main party in his multi-ethnic governing coalition.
"I congratulated its leader Nikola Gruevski on the victory in a telephone call," Buckovski said.
Gruevski's party had said earlier that according to their estimates, VMRO-DPMNE won 55 of the parliament's 120 seats, ensuring the defeat of the governing coalition.
The State Electoral Commission announced preliminary results of a portion of the votes counted pointing to victory of Gruevski's party.
The parliamentary election was closely watched by Brussels, which accepted Macedonia as an EU candidate in December last year. NATO and the 25-nation bloc, which Skopje hopes to join in 2008 and 2012 respectively, had called for free and fair elections.
"These parliamentary elections are a key test of the political maturity of the country," said the EU's special representative in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, as quoted by the private Makfax news agency.
The electoral authorities had earlier said that the vote had been staged in "a democratic manner" despite fears of polling day unrest following sporadic violence during campaigning, mainly between two rival ethnic Albanian parties.
Makfax said that: "The biggest fears of the international representatives and monitors -- violence, massive incidents or use of firearms -- did not come true."
The election was also a test of the Ohrid peace deal that ended a seven-month conflict five years ago between Macedonia's Slav majority and ethnic Albanian minority. Albanians comprise a quarter of Macedonia's population of 2 million.
Foreign observers, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were expected to deliver their verdict on the polls later yesterday.
Gruevski, a 35-year-old former amateur boxer and stage actor turned economist, had campaigned on a pledge to improve the economy of Macedonia, where unemployment runs at about 36 percent.
In Wednesday's poll, the electorate of 1.7 million people was asked to choose from about 2,700 candidates for the 120-seat parliament, in the fourth general election since independence from Yugoslavia 15 years ago.
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