Macedonian election passes 'political maturity' test

Macedonia staged peaceful parliamentary elections Wednesday in a vote seen as a crucial test of the impoverished Balkan country's political maturity in its bid to join the European Union and NATO.

"The election was held in a democratic manner with only small insignificant problems," the State Electoral Commission official Aleksandar Dastevski told AFP, as quoted by a spokesman after polling stations closed at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT).

The vote was closely watched by Brussels, which accepted Macedonia as an EU candidate in December last year. The 25-nation bloc, which Skopje hopes to join in 2012, has demanded free and fair elections.

"These parliamentary elections are a key test of the political maturity of the country," said the EU's special representative in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, as quoted by the private Makfax news agency.

"The biggest fears of the international representatives and monitors -- violence, massive incidents or use of firearms -- did not come true," Makfax said in a commentary.

The weeks leading up to the election saw sporadic violence, mainly between two rival ethnic Albanian parties. Twelve days ago a senior Albanian politician form the DUI party was shot and wounded outside his home in the tense western town of Tetovo.

Prime Minister Vlado Buckovski, whose multi-ethnic governing coalition hopes to join NATO in 2008, said earlier he was confident the EU would give a positive assessment of the Macedonian election.

"I expect today's voting will show Macedonia has the ability, democratically, to pass the most important test for our future, which is joining NATO and the EU," he said after casting his ballot in the capital.

The election was also a test of the Ohrid peace deal that ended a seven-month conflict five years ago between Macedonia's Slav majority and ethnic Albanian minority. Albanians comprise a quarter of Macedonia's population of two million.

It was monitored by some 7,000 observers. Most are local but nearly 500 come from foreign non-governmental organisations.

The electoral commission expects to announce initial results of the vote within the next few hours, with Buckovski's government facing a tough challenge from an opposition that says he has done little for Macedonia's struggling economy.

"I'm not satisfied with what's going on in the country," said Veljan Stojanovski, 56, voting at a kindergarten near Skopje's airport. "I'm jobless so I hope the new government will provide me with a job."

Buckovski's government was a coalition whose main members were his Social Democratic Union (SDSM) and the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), headed by former ethnic Albanian guerrilla leader Ali Ahmeti.

The Ohrid peace agreement granted amnesty to Albanian rebel leaders who had captured large swathes of western Macedonia during the 2001 conflict on condition they put down their arms.

The main opposition VMRO-DPMNE party of Nikola Gruevski was given a slight lead in recent opinion polls. He campaigned on a pledge to improve the economy in Macedonia, where unemployment runs at about 36 percent.

The electorate of 1.7 million people was asked to choose from about 2,700 candidates for Macedonia's 120-seat parliament, in the fourth general election since independence from Yugoslavia 15 years ago.

Voter turnout had been expected to be low as many Macedonians are already away on their summer holidays.

By 5:00 pm, when there were just two hours of voting to go, 42.6 percent of the electorate had voted at the 75.2 percent of polling booths for which turnout figures were available, electoral officials said.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a landlocked country about the size of Wales, whose population is 64-percent Slav, 25-percent ethnic Albanian and 11-percent from other minorities.