North Macedonia’s opposition rightist leads ahead of May 8 presidential poll runoff

North Macedonian presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova held a big lead over incumbent Stevo Pendarovski with votes counted from 99.03% of polling stations on Thursday, but both were short of the 50% backing needed to win outright.

Siljanovska-Davkova of the rightist VMRO-DPMNE had 40.08% of votes while pro-European Pendarovski, who has the support of the Social Democratic party, stood at 19.93%, the State Election Commission said.

A runoff between the two leading candidates will be held on May 8, together with the parliamentary election.

The vote for the largely ceremonial presidency was widely seen as a litmus test for the parliamentary election, in which VMRO-DPMNE is seeking to unseat the ruling pro-European and centre-left Social Democrats.

"This is incredibly inspirational for me, … this is the end of the first round, the second round...