Europe

Home page

Europe

Macedonians go to general elections on Sunday

04 June 2011 22:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Macedonians are heading to early general elections on Sunday after months of bitter fights between the country’s main political parties, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The State Election Commission said everything is in order for the election day.

Most of the opinion polls done recently show that the ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has the biggest chance of victory. Gruevski has been in power since 2006.

In the just finished election campaign that mainly focused on economy, the ruling party promises continuation of strong social and economic reforms as well as uncompromising fight against crime and corruption.

Gruevski pledged to curb poverty and unemployment, which has never been below the staggering 30 percent since its independce from former Yogoslavia 20 years ago.

The main opposition party, the Social Democrats led by Branko Crvenkovski accuses the government of curbing democratic freedoms and not doing enough for economic upturn.

Both parties say they will work hard to bring the country closer towards NATO and EU membership. Although being Macedonian strategic goals, both bids are currently blocked due to an unresolved name dispute with neighboring Greece, which is a member of both organizations.

Greece refuses to grant entrance for Macedonia, arguing that the country must first change its name which is identical to that of the northern Greek province.

Sunday’s vote begins at 7 am and will last until 7 pm, local time, in nearly 3,000 polling stations across the country. Over 1. 8 million people out of 2,2 million residents are eligible to vote.

This is the seventh general election in the country and the second early elections in a row since 2008.

The polls come after several months of political gridlock caused by the opposition’s boycott of the parliament. The opposition, unsatisfied with Gruevski’s work walked out of the parliament in January and after several months of talks with the ruling party they agreed to go on elections.

Some 7,000 police officers will be deployed to safeguard polling stations during the election days.

Elections will be monitored by some 500 foreign and over 7,000 domestic monitors. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will dispatch most of the foreign observers.