Skopje, 25 April 2024 (MIA) – Preliminary results from the State Election Commission's website on Thursday morning show that, with almost 100 percent of votes counted, VMRO-DPMNE candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova won 362,682 votes (40.08%), while SDSM’s Stevo Pendarovski won 180,306 votes (19.93%).

DUI’s Bujar Osmani is third with 120,903 votes (13.36%), followed by Arben Taravari from the Worth It coalition with 83,356 votes (9.21%), ZNAM’s Maksim Dimitrievski has 83,787 votes (9.26%), Levica’s Biljana Vankovska has 41,172 votes (4.55%) and GROM’s Stevcho Jakimovski has 8,103 votes (0.90%).

State Election Commission (SEC) President Aleksandar Dashtevski told a press conference late Wednesday that voter turnout, based on data from 3,156 polling stations, stands at 49.75 percent. A total of 810,971 voters cast their votes. Valid ballots amounted to 789,031, with 21,946 invalid ballots.

A total of 1,814,317 citizens were eligible to vote for seven candidates in Wednesday's presidential elections administered in 3,480 polling stations nationwide. 

A candidate is required to win the majority of votes out of the total number of voters - 907,159 votes – to be declared the winner in the elections. Seeing that no candidate won the required majority in the first round, the two candidates who win the most votes in the first round are set to qualify to vie in the second round - Gordana Siljanovska Davkova and Stevo Pendarovski. 

The second round is to take place on May 8 – 14 days after the first round. The candidate who will win the majority of votes will be elected president only if a turnout of 40% is registered – 725,727 voters – according to the Electoral Code, and if 362,864 voters cast votes in favor of that candidate. 

This is the country's seventh direct presidential election since the independence. The previous ones were held in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019.

Photo: print screen