Macedonia Poll Re-run Fails to Resolve Power Battle

Despite the victory of the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, in the election re-run on Sunday in the village of Tearce in Macedonia, the number of seats that each bloc won in the December 11 elections remains the same. The ruling VMRO DPMNE party won 51 and the SDSM 49 in the 120-seat parliament.

The opposition won 245 votes in Tearce and the ruling party won just 150.

This was not enough to break the threshold, a difference of 304 votes, in the sixth electoral unit, where Tearce is located, that would have given both parties 50 seats.

Both parties have since reiterated they were the true victors in the elections and would therefore form the next government.

"This was a symbolic vote. The people of Tearce, like the rest of the Macedonian voters, opted for change and a better future, regardless of the pressures that were present," SDSM MP Petre Shilegov said. He added that the SDSM would go on to form the next government.

The ruling VMRO DPMNE party, which initially said it would boycott the re-run as an attempt to steal its victory, said the attempt had failed.

"As the [overall] winners in the elections we remain committed to the next steps in formation of a new government," the ruling party said in a press release.

To form a stable majority in parliament of at least 61 MPs, both main parties now need the support of one or preferably two of the ethnic Albanian parties that entered parliament.

At a meeting this weekend, the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI which won 10 seats, and the opposition Alliance for Albanians, led by the DPA - Movement for Reforms, which won three, agreed to the demands they would put to their bigger Macedonian counterparts.

These...