(ANSA) - SKOPJE - The presidential election is scheduled for
Sunday in North Macedonia, to replace the outgoing president
Gjorgje Ivanov (Conservative party) who after two five-year
terms could no longer run for president. The candidates are
Stevo Pendarovski (ruling coalition), Gordana
Siljanovska-Davkova member of the conservative opposition and
Blerim Reka, member of the ethnic Albanian party in the
coalition, DUI.
A recent poll gave Pendarovski 27.2% of the national vote,
23.5% to Siljanovska-Davkova and 11% to Reka. If no one gets 50%
plus one vote, a run-off will take place on May 5.
According to local rules, however, the run-off run will be
valid only if it records a turnout of at least 40%. Stevo
Pendarovski (56yo), a professor and analyst was a candidate in
the 2014 presidential election, supported by the ruling
coalition between the Social Democrats and the Albanian DUI
party. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova (64yo), the candidate for the
conservative Vmro-Dpmne opposition party, is also a university
professor and jurist. Blerim Reka (59yo), supported by two
parties of the Albanian minority in the opposition, is a
lecturer at the Faculty of South Eastern Europe at the
University of Skopje.
The election scheduled for Sunday is the first election to be
held in North Macedonia after the entry into force of the
agreement with Greece on the name agreement of the former
Yugoslavian country, a deal that settled an almost thirty-year
dispute between Skopje and Athens, and which paved the way for
the integration of North Macedonia into Nato and the EU. The
citizens who have the right to vote are 1,808,131. (ANSA).
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