Kurzweil
JF-Expert Member
- May 25, 2011
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MECEDONIA: Chama tawala na chama kikuu cha upinzani vimejitangazia ushindi katika uchaguzi wa Bunge na kuzua hali ya taharuki kwa Wananchi.
- Uchaguzi huo ulilenga kusitisha mzozo wa kisiasa baina ya pande hizo mbili uliodumu kwa kipindi cha miaka miwili.
Kiongozi wa chama tawala ameusifu ushindi wa chama chake na kuongoeza kuwa ushindi huo ni wa Wananchi wore, huku kiongozi mkuu wa upinzani akisema kuwa chama chake kimeshinda na utawala dhalimu umeangushwa.
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SKOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonia’s ruling party and its largest opposition party both declared victory on Sunday night in parliamentary elections that were supposed to end a two-year political deadlock but appear to have merely extended it.
According to preliminary results from the State Election Commission, the conservative ruling party, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party, won slightly more votes than the opposition party, the Social Democratic Union. But the difference between the tallies was so small, less than 1.5 percentage points, that the parties will probably get an equal number of seats in Parliament when official results are finalized on Monday.
However, neither party wanted to wait until then to proclaim victory, and both began celebrating at almost at the same time.
“This is a win for the citizens of this country,” Nikola Gruevski, a former prime minister and the leader of the ruling party, said at the party’s headquarters in downtown Skopje, the capital. “It is a win for the country to have such free and democratic elections.”
A few hundred yards from him, Zoran Zaev, the leader of the Social Democrats, declared his party the winner. Mr. Zaev said that according to his party’s calculations, the Social Democrats had enough votes to get the right to form a new government.
“The regime is down,” Mr. Zaev said in front of a few hundred supporters in Skopje. “This is a new beginning, a new beautiful beginning for Macedonia. The country will be free, united and thriving again.”
According to preliminary data from the Election Commission, turnout was 67 percent of registered voters, seven percentage points higher than in the previous election, in 2013.
Regardless of who wins the most seats in Macedonia’s unicameral Parliament, the winner will have to form a coalition with smaller parties that managed to secure seats to be able to form a government. And other challenges remain.
A widespread wiretapping scandal revealed corruption, election rigging and other criminal activities at the highest levels of government in 2015, causing a political crisis. After mass protests, a deal brokered by world powers resulted in an agreement in July 2015 to hold early parliamentary elections as one of the key steps out of the crisis, along with the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate all cases related to the intercepted conversations.
Source: New York Times