Zaev’ Social Democrats on Lead with Albanian Parties Positioned Third in N. Macedonia Poll

North Macedonia’s Social Democrats eked out a razor-thin win over nationalist rivals, official election results showed Thursday, highlighting deep fault lines in a country preparing to start EU membership talks.
The electoral commission said early Thursday that with nearly 94% of the vote counted the Social Democrats have 36% and VMRO-DPMNE follow at more than 34%. The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration was third at 11%, while a coalition of two smaller ethnic Albanian parties followed at nearly 9%. The Commission gave no projections on how many seats each party stood to win in the 120-member parliament.
A suspected hacking attack caused the site of North Macedonia’s electoral commission to crash for hours after polls closed in national elections Wednesday, delaying preliminary results.
Addressing cheering supporters in the capital Skopje, Social Democrats leader Zoran Zaev declared victory and promised fast reforms to help the country’s European Union accession hopes end revive the battered economy.
Election authorities said turnout had reached 50.8% half an hour before polls closed, which is lower than in previous elections.
Zaev’s governing Social Democrats called the early parliamentary election when he resigned as prime minister in January after the European Union failed to give North Macedonia a start date for EU membership talks.
North Macedonia has had a caretaker government since his resignation as prime minister in January.
If neither Social Democrats with 36% and VMRO-DPMNE at more than 34%
can achieve an outright victory, the winner will most likely have to seek a power-sharing deal with parties representing the country’s large ethnic Albanian minority, which got about 20% of the votes taken together. /news agencies-argumentum. al