site.btaNorth Macedonia Elects First Woman President, VMRO-DPMNE Scores Decisive Victory in Parliamentary Elections

With 96.78% of the tally sheets processed, the State Election Commission of North Macedonia has published the distribution of seats in the country's new parliament on Thursday.

The party that won the most votes, VMRO-DPMNE, will have 59 MPs, which gives it a high degree of certainty that it can form a government that needs 61 MPs to be approved. With its 19 seats the European Front coalition led by the Democratic Union for Integration is the second political force. The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia-led coalition received 18 seats, while the coalition of Albanian parties Worth It will have 13 MPs. The Left party, which had two MPs in the previous parliament, will now have 6 MPs. For Our Macedonia (ZNAM), which is standing for elections for the first time, enters the new parliament with 5 MPs. 

With 300,000 more votes than the country's incumbent president Stevo Pendarovski, VMRO-DPMNE’s Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova will be North Macedonia's first female president, the State Election Commission results show.

VMRO-DPMNE chairman Hristijan Mickoski announced his party’s election victory, SDSM Chair Dimitar Kovachevski said that the election result for the party that ruled the country until now was tough and there are congress and internal party elections ahead. Both coalitions of Albanian parties scored electoral victories: the European Front - for being practically the second political force in the country, and Worth It - because they feel safe coalition partners in the future government, after Mickoski named them as the preferred ones and announced that "the DSU should go to the opposition".