No more election campaigning in Macedonia

The pre-election silence ahead of Sunday's general and presidential elections began on Friday, overshadowed by opposition allegations of election fraud and threats that it may not recognise the result.

Campaigning is halting in Macedonia ahead of Sunday's elections, when almost 1.8 million registered voters will choose 123 MPs, as well as the next head of state.

In the presidential race, the incumbent President Gjorge Ivanov is running for a second five-year term. He is in a competition with his opponent, the Social Democrat, SDSM, candidate, Stevo Pendarovski.

In the first round of voting on April 13, Ivanov won 449,000 votes, while Pendarovski came second with 326,000, which makes for a difference of over 120,000 votes in Ivanov’s favour.

After the first round of voting, the OSCE/ODIHR monitoring mission to Skopje said the polls were well administered but noted that “biased media coverage and the blurring of state and party activities failed to provide an even playing field".

“The entire election atmosphere and the intrusion into the secrecy and integrity of the voting point to lack of democratic capacity and to an inability to set free, fair and democratic elections”, the Helsinki Committee said.