Small Macedonian Party Poses Legal Challenge to Election

Macedonia's Constitutional Court could potentially put the December 11 general election date on hold if it upholds a motion submitted on Tuesday by a small ethnic Albanian party.

The Uniteti party, which has no seats in parliaiment, says the larger number of registered voters in one of the six electoral districts renders the election unfair and thus illegal.

The sixth district covers northwest Macedonia, where ethnic Albanians make the majority of the local population.

"Without balanced electoral districts, Constitutional Article 22, which guarantees equality of the rights of voters is breached," the party said.

The problem with the sixth district is not new. Before parliament dissolved on October 17, the State Electoral Commission warned that the sixth district contained above the limit of 5 per cent more voters than other districts.

However, the political parties failed to find a solution by rearranging the borders of the electoral districts by the time of the dissolution.

Law professor Osman Kadriu says the threat to the elections is real as the court may rule that some legal grounds in Uniteti's motion are justified.

However, "It was probably no coincidence that this issue was not solved beforehand, so the political parties can have an alibi [for delaying the election]," he added.

The elections, seen as a key step towards resolving Macedonia's long-standing crisis and which the EU and US strongly support, were postponed twice this year already.

Amid tense quarrels over implementation of EU-suggested reforms, Macedonia missed two set election dates on April 24 and June 5.

Earlier this month, one of the four main parties, the Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, threatened to...