Election silence in Macedonia today, tomorrow runoff

Today in Macedonia there is electoral silence before the runoff tomorrow when it is voted for mayors. The race is expected to be difficult, especially in most of the municipalities inhabited by Albanians. Local elections there are as politicised as are general elections, and the process is expected to affect Macedonia's European path as well. 

On Sunday in Macedonia, the run-off in 35 municipalities out of eighty-five short of the country. The most interesting race is expected to be in predominantly Albanian municipalities, such as Tetovo, Gostivar, Struga, Skopje's Cairi and Debar the Great. Just over 830,000 voters have the right to vote in the second round, and the high number of registered voters has been controversial issues for years in the small country of two million people.

What has been at the centre of the debate these weeks since the start of the campaign is the open coalition between government partners, the Social Democratic League and the Democratic Union for Integration, a mutual support that resulted from the choice since the first round of the Social-Democrat candidate for the head of Skopje's city, Petre Shilegov, and the leader of Kricova from the DUI ranks, Fatmir Dehari. Another coalition, not quite natural among the Alliance for Albanians and Movement “Besa” because the first is the government and second opposition party, and there has been a history of mutual verbal attacks until two weeks ago, is likely to jeopardise DUI's victory in the race. The two Albanian parties back each other's candidates in 12 municipalities, from Likova in the country's north to Struga.

The Alliance with Bea, as their electoral union has been called, has asked social-democrat leaders and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev not to get involved in Albanian municipalities and not tell voters who they should vote for. Meanwhile, DUI has filed counter-accuses against rival parties, saying they are in coalition with VMRO- Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's DPMNE. The latter's electorate, according to analysts, would vote to hurt DUI in majority Albanian municipalities. On the other hand, DUI hopes in the largest number of voters and in the discipline of Social Democratic League supporters, who in this case present a balance in the runoff. DUI's Teuta Arifi and the Bilal Kasami of the “Besa” compete in Tetovo; the DUI's Gostivar Navzat Bayta; and the Alliance's Arben Taravari for Albanians, at Strugadin Sela (ASH) against Ramiz Merkos (BDI), in Cair Visar Ganiu (BDI) faces Zeri Ibrahimi (<6Besa<7>), while in Diber Ruzhdez <x> with Arbeni Agoli of the Albanians for the Alliance. 470 foreign observers and over five thousand representatives of domestic nongovernmental organisations will attend the process.